"Google Was Our First Office": Managing a Worldwide Staff
Efrat Ben-Dor Erez, NPTech Israel
Imagine a Jewish girl, selling Challah bread on a college campus in America to help support black Muslims in Darfur. This amazing project, initiated by Eli Winkelman, came to life with the help of PresenTense. PresenTense is an international nonprofit organization founded in 2006, which uses technology effectively to sustain its activities, functioning as a "start up incubator for social entrepreneurs". Their mission is to engage and inspire the most creative minds, investing their ideas and energy to revitalize the Jewish community and the world.
So how does this "incubator" work?
One of PresenTense's core activities is the Global Summer Institute, held in Jerusalem. The fellowship participants, who are carefully chosen, each bring an idea for a venture, such as the project "Bible Raps". At the institute, they are provided with practical tools that enable them to launch their ideas, receiving training on building a business plan, developing a strategy, budgeting for fundraising, planning communications, finding connections, and more. Each fellow is guided by a personal volunteer, mentor, and a coach, who are professionals in different fields.
There are 500 volunteers working for PresenTense each year, mainly from North America and Israel, but also from other places around the globe. PT currently has fellowships in Boston, Cleveland, New York, Philadelphia, Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem -- and will be expanding next year to Europe and other cities in North America.
With only 7 people working for them on a daily basis in Jerusalem, along with 1 in Tel Aviv and 3 in NY, they rely on technology to do the rest of the work.
Online Collaboration
PT used technology from day one, says Simi Hinden, the director of the online community. A print magazine is one of PT's main activities, providing an additional channel for the global community of young Jews to exchange ideas.
"Google was our first office", Simi explains. They used Google docs to help share documents with the volunteers worldwide as they worked on the magazine. They also used wufoo.com, which helps create online forms, process applications for programs, manage magazine applications, subscriptions and more.
CRM
PT started using Salesforce.com in 2008, taking advantage of its free licenses for nonprofits. Salesforce helps manage PT's contacts, work flow, fellows and mentors tracking, magazine subscriptions, opportunities, and donations.
It was not used efficiently at the beginning. Today, Simi is the sole person is dedicated to customizing Salesforce. Although she doesn't have a strong technical background, she picks up things as she goes along.
At one point, they considered using civiCRM, another CRM platform, designed for nonprofits, but they found it to be too basic for some of their needs, like managing and tracking all the different people and organizations with whom they are involved.
Social Media and the Concentration of Information
Social Media helps PresenTense manage their big community: they use Facebook, twitter and Google Apps. These applications make it easy for PT to stay in touch and communicate with volunteers and fellows, announce events, seminars and more.
The down side is that it's easy to forget things using these applications, like finding an email from a person who agreed to become a volunteer, so it was decided to use something more solid. At this stage they met with Royi Biller, CEO of NPTech Israel, in Jerusalem, and with NPTech's assistance, began customizing Salesforce to their needs. Oded Segev, System Analyst at NPTech, guided Simi on how to customize Salesforce, but she does the work herself.
Simi says that one of the big advantages of using Salesforce is that "everyone is on the same page at the same time", all the information is in one place, and everyone knows where to update it.
Managing Events
In order to manage PT's events and track attendance, wufoo.com and Facebook are used. They integrate the information received from Wuffo into Salesforce, and the Wuffo form is embedded in PT's website.
PT also broadcasts some of the events using livestream.com. Long videos are uploaded to Blip.tv, short videos to youTube, and pictures to Flicker.com. PT's web site is constantly updated, another way to keep in touch and inform people.
At the seminars, the fellows participate in an intensive tech treating session, and are provided with tech tools to enhance their projects, like weebly.com, which provides a free tool for building basic web-sites.
The Hub
PresenTense has even created a live Hub. They describe the hub as a "physical and psychological space for innovators to build their ideas". It's actually a meeting place, located in the heart of Jerusalem's historic German Colony -- a place where people can come and work, enjoy free coffee and internet, make connections and exchange ideas, and enjoy PresenTenses' creative atmosphere and inspiration.
We remain inspired by them.
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Four New Killer Sales Apps
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The right sales tools can go a long way toward bolstering the bottom line, particularly in a tough business climate. Here are four new applications that can help you set prices, make pitches, and chase down leads.
Proposable.com
This online software helps users create Web-based sales proposals and send a private URL to prospective clients. The software comes with templates and lets you easily embed videos and pictures. It also lets you see when a prospect opens a file and for how long.
COST: $19 to $79 a month after a 30-day free trial
Salesforce Chatter
A Facebook for sales teams, Chatter has a secure, simple interface that lets colleagues post, share, and comment on things such as PowerPoint presentations and invoices. You can also add a widget to monitor tweets of clients and co-workers.
COST: Currently in free beta testing
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