CiviCore Powers Historic Colorado Gives Day

CiviCore Clients Take Advantage of Colorado Gives Day

CiviCore was proud to partner with Community First Foundation and FirstBank as a sponsor and technology provider for Colorado Gives Day. Based on the hundreds of emails CiviCore received, many of our Colorado-based clients took advantage of this end-of-year opportunity to promote their agencies with donors.

On Wednesday December 8^th, over $8 million was raised through the Giving First website for non-profits in Colorado, with our system processing as many as six donations per second and tens of thousands of users over the course of the day.  First Bank of Colorado made a lead gift of $250,000 to the incentive fund that helped agencies motivate their donors and increase the amount contributed on Colorado Gives Day. Many of CiviCore’s clients were able to find their own matching donors that further increased the impact of this unique day of giving.

We are proud to be a part of the GivingFirst effort that has made online fundraising so affordable and easy for nonprofits in our state.  Adding a donate button to your website is easy and creating custom fundraising campaigns takes just a few minutes. The Giving First system is a great way for non-profits to promote their work with donors and other supporters, take donations on-line without any fees, and be part of this annual Colorado Gives Day.

For our clients who are not using the system, we encourage you to check it out at www.givingfirst.org. For those of our clients who have been using the system, we encourage you to check out the new features, including the individual fundraising campaign page that gives your supporters the ability to set their own goals and track their efforts in raising money for your agency.

Here is a note we received from the Development Director of the Women's Bean Project, a local non-profit, regarding their experience with the Giving Platform yesterday: "Just wanted to shoot you a little note of congratulations.  I know CiviCore developed the web technology for Giving First.  Everything worked super-smoothly on our end yesterday, so I’m sure you all put a ton of work in on your end!  In addition, we noticed that nearly half of our donations came from first-time donors, which is incredibly valuable for us.  Thanks!"


For more information on the Giving First system or any of CiviCore’s other technology solutions, please give us a call at 303-477-0900 or drop us an email at info@civicore.com

Best wishes for a Happy Holiday season,

 The CiviCore Team

Colorado School Choice goes live at Ed News!

CiviCore is proud to announce that the Colorado School Choice data system is now powering the new Education News Colorado data center.  You can find the application at http://csc.ednewsparent.org.

The Colorado School Choice data system contains detailed information on all 1700 schools in Colorado.  The system provides parents with better ways to understand schools in their area and make informed school choices for their children by providing them information on enrollment statistics, achievement and performance, and programs offered.  The interactive maps and charts provide parents with great tools for better understanding the schools in their area.

Education News Colorado, found at http://ednewscolorado.org, is the only news service devoted to continuing, in-depth coverage of education policymaking in the legislature and state government.  It features comprehensive coverage and serious analysis of such issues as school choice, accountability, and education reform.  They recently launched a partner site, "EdNews Parent," found at http://ednewsparent.org, as a "way to engage Colorado parents on issues we all care about: teaching and learning, healthy schools, and school safety."  Here at CiviCore, we're excited to help Colorado parents make more informed decisions around school choice by equipping this new website with the Colorado School Choice data system.

Interview with Ric Merrifield – How do you define your work? (Part 3 of 3)

Note:  This is part 3 of CiviCore Principal Charles Naumer's interview with Ric Merrifield.  See Part 1 and Part 2 for more information on this interview.  For more on Ric Merrifield’s work, http://www.rethinkbook.com

Ric has developed a very interesting way to visualize and understand the work of organizations using heat maps.  His heat map approach helps organizations to diagram their processes and to identify the processes according to how they are performing and the value to the organization’s mission.  The following is an example of one of Ric’s heat maps.

My conversation with Ric challenged me to reconsider the how’s, what’s and why’s of our business.  As may be typical of a mission driven organization, when considering these aspects it always comes back to the why’s and what’s we believe rather than the specifics of how and what we do.  CiviCore was founded based on the belief that we could make a significant social impact by providing social sector organizations with powerful and cost effective software delivered via the Internet.  These are the beliefs that drive our organization and in turn determine what we consider of value.  This focus seems to be very well suited to Ric’s heat mapping approach that focus on value and performance.

Ric’s work has offered some interesting insight into our work as well as our own.  The more I have considered Ric’s work the more it seems like a natural fit to social sector, mission driven organizations.

Interview with Ric Merrifield – Who is our ideal customer? (Part 2 of 3)

Note:  This is part 2 of CiviCore Principal Charles Naumer's interview with Ric Merrifield.  See Part 1 for more information on this interview.  For more on Ric Merrifield’s work, http://www.rethinkbook.com

One of the questions that Ric posed to me during our chat was “Who is your ideal customer?”  This is a question that we have thought about a lot.  So, it didn’t take me by surprise but always causes me to re-evaluate our beliefs as a company.  In the context of my conversation with Ric, and his focus on core business processes, the question caused me to evaluate our answer against the premises of his work.  Ric’s approach fits a mission driven organization, such as CiviCore, very well. My initial reaction to this question is to think about the clients that we have created the most value for and to try and identify the commonalities across those client relationships.  Additionally, as a social mission driven organization, we like to ask the question “where do we feel we make the greatest social impact?”

In the context of Ric’s work, we believe that the types of organizations we create the most value for are organizations that have a clear view of their unique value proposition.  Once we understand our client’s value proposition we are able to customize our software to help our clients become more efficient and effective.  This customization process allows our clients to continue to be innovative in the way they serve their clientele and provides a path forward allowing software to adapt to the evolution of their organization.

We believe that the value proposition that Ric discusses doesn’t only apply to individual organizations, it may also apply to networks of organizations.  An area CiviCore has been able to create great value is by working with multi-affiliate groups.  CiviCore works with multi-affiliate groups to understand core processes across their network and identifies common functionality shared by all affiliated organizations.  Shared work processes and data elements are also identified to support the network’s activities. In this way, CiviCore works with networks of organizations to provide them with software customized to their unique needs and provides a way for costs to be shared among affiliate organizations.

Our experience has been that by customizing our application platform to provide our clients with solutions that fit their specific needs our clients are better able to achieve their mission and grow as an organization.  It is very gratifying for us to hear from our customers once we have finished customizing an application that it is “exactly what they need” and for them to say “you get us – you get what we are trying to do”.  These are the types of comments that really make us feel as if we are on the right track and that we are helping our clients to make a difference.

CiviCore Launches software for ELK (Environmental Learning for Kids)

CiviCore is proud to announce the recent launch of our youth services platform for Environmental Learning for Kids. ELK is a Denver-based, 501(c)3 organization established in 1996 by two wildlife biologists, Scott and Stacie Gilmore, who saw a growing need to introduce and educate Colorado's urban youth about science, math, leadership and careers. ELK focuses on experiential youth development and to date has taken more than 95,000 youth into the outdoors.

Here is what Cindy Chang, ELK's Resource Development Associate Director, had to say about her experience working with CiviCore:

“Before Civicore, we were using a database that was built for sales, not for non-profits. This meant we had to jury-rig a lot of the tools for our own use, which oftentimes failed us. Eventually, we gave up and stopped using it regularly, which meant our data quickly went out of date.

With Civicore, we had a database that was built for us, which meant it worked right away, the right way. The staff at Civicore were easy to work with. Their experience with so many non-profits was clear when they were talking with us about our programs and about our needs. This made the development process surprisingly smooth, calm, and pain-free! Now, after the development process, Civicore staff are responsive to our needs and requests within one working day. I am extremely impressed with their service, their skills, and their ability to communicate with us laypeople.

In my experience with many databases, I can easily say that Civicore’s makes the most sense to enter, find, and report data, and to teach others how to use. It just makes sense. And they’re improving it everyday. We benefit from these improvements immediately and with absolutely no hassle or interruption on our end. I would definitely recommend Civicore to anyone in the non-profit sector who just wants a working database.”

We'd like to thank ELK both for choosing to partner with CiviCore as well as for the great things they do for the youth of Denver. We hope that our software will help their organization continue to grow and exceed!

Interview with Ric Merrifield – A Focus on Core Processes (Part 1 of 3)

Recently, CiviCore Partner Charles Naumer had an opportunity to sit down and talk with business analyst and author Ric Merrifield. Ric is Microsoft's official "Business Architect," focusing on helping companies to rethink their operating models and get out of the “how” trap. In his latest book Re-Think, he challenges readers to think about “what” we’re doing and “why” we’re doing it. He suggests that we need to move beyond focusing on how we do things to think about what activities are critical to success. In addition to his work at Microsoft, Ric is engaged and interested in the social sector. Below is part one of a three-part series covering their conversation.


"Ric and I discussed some of his experiences with nonprofit organizations and ways in which his business process work is applicable to social sector organization. Ric has done a lot of work to better understand the role of technology within organizations. One area that is particularly interesting to CiviCore is his view on ways that social sector organizations can capitalize on technological innovation. He encourages organizations to identify which of their processes are unique to their organization and which are similar to other organizations. Once an organization identifies what they do differently they can begin to focus on where they add the most value as an organization. For example, if an organization does accounting like everyone else then this isn’t a key value added aspect of their organization. For these areas, they should move to adopt the same accounting software and products used by others. They should take advantage of low-cost, mass marketed “off-the-shelf” solutions or even open-source solutions designed for that specific function.


Once an organization identifies the value producing aspects of their organization they should dedicate resources to further developing systems and processes to support these aspects of their organization. For example, if an organization has a specialized method of delivering services to their clients, they should focus on developing systems to support their organization in delivering these services. They should continue to evolve, develop, and improve this aspect of their business and the systems that support it. In doing so, they should choose technology that will grow and can be adapted to their processes.


For us at CiviCore, this message has been refreshing and right on target. We work very hard to understand and tailor our software to specific focus organizational types such as volunteer organizations, mentoring programs, youth centered organizations, and many others. We then work hard to understand each organization’s individual requirements and further customize our software to meet each organization’s needs. In this way, our clients not only benefit from the work already done to understand their service area but also benefit from software tailored to meet their specific needs. In a nutshell, this is the CiviCore value proposition that we continue to develop in order to best serve our customers and to follow our mission of making the largest possible impact in the social sector."

Note:  For more on Ric Merrifield’s work visit – http://www.rethinkbook.com.  Stay tuned next week for part 2 of this interview.

CiviCore Launches Mentoring Management System for Home Builders Institute

CiviCore is proud to announce the recent launch of a version of our Mentoring Management platform for the Home Builders Institute (HBI). HBI was well down the road with another vendor when they changed directions and partnered with CiviCore.  We believe that our vast experience in the mentoring space and experience in the non-profit world really made the difference in achieving success on this project.

Headquartered in Washington, D.C.,  HBI was established in 1983 as the workforce development arm of the National Association of Home Builders.  For more than 30 years, HBI has trained skilled workers in residential construction, promoted the industry as a career, and helped the NAHB membership address its need for qualified employees.

Here is what Dennis Torbett, Vice President of HBI Workforce Training & Employment, had to say about our work:

"Home Builders Institute is very pleased to partner with CiviCore in the creation of a database of information for our new U.S. Department of Justice mentoring initiative, C-CORE. Software development is not an easy process, but CiviCore and their professional staff have made it easy and fun.  They have been extremely accommodating in customizing a product that will meet our needs for reliable and pertinent data. Their experience in the mentoring arena has added value to their products and services."


We'd like to commend Dennis and the rest of the team at HBI for the great work they do, and we look forward to working with them going forward.  Thanks, all!

CiviCore Launches Volunteer Management System for ASPCA

CiviCore is proud to announce the recent launch of a Volunteer Management System for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA).  Founded in 1866, the ASPCA was the first humane society to be established in North America and is today one of the largest in the world.  As a privately funded 501(c)(3) non-profit, the ASPCA boasts more than 1 million supporters across the country as well as thousands of volunteers.

In order to more effectively utilize their volunteer force, the ASPCA recently partnered with CiviCore to launch a Volunteer Management System (VMS).  Our system allows ASPCA staff to create and manage volunteer opportunities and trainings within the system and enroll targeted volunteers towards these events. Further, ASPCA volunteers can log in to the system, register for events and trainings, and even use our online time management system to clock in and clock out during their volunteer hours, allowing the ASPCA to run powerful analytics on the impact of their volunteer force.

We would like to thank the ASPCA for partnering with us on such an exciting project, and we look forward to our system helping make their organization even more effective.

New CiviCore Client - Crisis Center of Johnson County

     CiviCore is happy to have recently launched a new database for the Crisis Center of Johnson County!  This new CiviCore partner has five main programs, including the Food Bank Program and the Emergency Assistance Program. These two programs provide material assistance to clients in the form of food, vouchers to purchase clothing and household items, local bus tickets, birthday items for children, blankets and sheets, financial assistance for emergency situations, and more. Last year they served 14,000 people in Johnson County, Iowa, and distributed roughly 1 million pounds of food and nearly $100,000 in emergency financial assistance to those in need in their community! To provide these critical services, they rely on roughly 150 volunteers each year.

     Sarah Benson Witry, Assistant Program Director, worked hard to get this complex system up and running, and user friendly enough that a volunteer based staff can easily enter the information and focus on the people they are serving.  Sarah had this to say about our system.

"Our Civicore database helps us track our clients, the services we provide, and the volunteers who provide them. We love that it is web-based, so we can access our information on any computer, and we love how responsive Civicore is to our needs. Our previous database used an outdated platform and was designed by a volunteer. When changes needed to happen, we had no one to turn to for support. With Civicore, our database can grow and change with our needs and improvements are made very quickly. In addition, our custom-made Civicore database was far more affordable than other databases that were less suited to our needs. The search function allows us to export data to Excel and has made creating reports much simpler and more accurate. We love Civicore and are so excited to continue working with them!"

           Sarah Benson Witry
           Food Bank & Emergency Assistance Program Director
           The Crisis Center of Johnson County

 

CiviCore goes live with Early Intervention Colorado Provider Database!

     CiviCore is happy to announce that the Early Intervention (EI) Colorado Provider Database launched in late July! This database allows providers who deliver early intervention services to children birth to age 3 and their families, to apply to the local EI Program(s) in their area and provide their credentials and other information over the Internet. 

     The local communities that help coordinate these services can in turn see the providers applications when they apply to that community, review their credentials, and approve them if they decide to hire or contract with them. Once approved, providers can be searched by families and the service coordinators that assist them. These searches can help a family find any provider or a specific type of provider that serves children in their specific zip code. Check it out at www.eicolorado.org!

CiviCore launches Online Grant Application software for the Johnson Foundation

Here at CiviCore, we are excited to announce the recent launch of an online grant application software system for the Helen K. and Arther E. Johnson Foundation.  Here is what Cindy Willard, Senior Program Officer for the foundation, had to say about our work:

"The Helen K. and Arthur E. Johnson Foundation is learning all the time how good data and application systems can make us more productive.  We recently piloted an online grant application process with a select group of grant seekers.  The Foundation has used a CiviCore database for three years to help us track our paper applications, reports, documents and notes.  With the addition of an online grant application, we expect the application and review process to be more efficient for our staff and trustees, straightforward for our nonprofit partners and better for the environment with less paper involved in our work. 

Applicants were able to set up an account and then add information to their application over time.  When their application was complete, they hit the “Submit” button and sent it electronically to the Foundation.  Then, we began our review and decision-making processes as normal.  As a statewide grant maker in Colorado and one with several Trustees living out of state, the addition to our existing system is proving highly beneficial to our work."

The Helen K. and Arther E. Johnson foundation is now using our system to track grant application information for thousands of organizations, and CiviCore is proud to be able to help this wonderful organization with their grant application management process.  We think this project, by web-enabling and increasing the efficiency of a charitable foundation's grant application and review process, really embodies what CiviCore is all about - creating "Technology for People Making a Difference."

CiviCore attends the National Network to End Domestic Violence conference

CiviCore attended the National Network to End Domestic Violence’s conference “Where Technology Meets Confidentiality:  Strengthening Agencies & Services”.  The National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV) http://www.nnedv.org is a leading voice for domestic violence victims and their advocates.  Topics included emerging technology safety issues, technology use within partnerships, GPS monitoring of offenders, safe and effective outreach to sexual assault victims, teens and technology, sexting, online privacy and social networking, mandatory reporting laws, confidentiality and VAWA 2005 obligations, privacy and electronic health records, and best practices around data collection, data sharing, and data retention. 

CiviCore was pleased to be included in the conference and to have the opportunity to meet so many committed people to ending domestic violence. We got many good ideas for continuing to evolve our victim services case management system.  Thank you to NNEDV staff and all of the domestic violence advocates for your good work.

CiviCore presents at Rocky Mountain Gov 2.0 Camp

CiviCore was at the Government 2.0 Camp Rocky Mountain camp held in Boulder, CO over the weekend.  The camp brought together leading thinkers from government, academia, and industry to share information about Government 2.0 initiatives.  The objective of the camp was to explore ways we can create a more collaborative, transparent, and effective government.

In 2009, the first Government 2.0 Camp was held in Washington D.C. to bring together leading thinkers from government, academia, and industry to share Government 2.0 initiatives that were in progress and to collaborate on ideas about leveraging social media tools and Web 2.0 technologies to create a more collaborative, transparent, and effective government - Government 2.0.  That event was a success and laid the ground work for other Government 2.0 Camps throughout the United States.

Chic Naumer, co-founder of CiviCore, discussed some of the exciting new applications we have developed in this area and different approaches toward developing applications in this sphere.  A key theme of the presentation was on developing concept or problem centric systems that help people better understand policy issues.  Web 2.0 applications can be very important toward getting people to not only discuss statistics but to also to engage in discussions about how they are thinking about an issue.

See the entire presentation here -

A big thanks to organizers Scott Primeau and Brian Gryth as well as all the attendees for  a great conference!

CiviCore Interviews Laura Renner - Volunteer Manager, Humane Society of Missouri

This week, CiviCore had the opportunity to interview Laura Renner, Volunteer Manager for the Humane Society of Missouri (HSMO).   Laura is a true leader in the field of volunteer management for the animal service arena and has many significant accomplishments.  Laura completed her bachelor’s degree in Business Administration with a minor in Sociology and later completed a master’s degree in Non-Profit Management.  She also worked for The Boeing Company for more than 6 years before moving to the Humane Society of Missouri in October 2008.   Here is what she had to say:

1.)    What are you most proud of in your efforts as Volunteer Manager for HSMO?

 In July 2009, the Humane Society of Missouri executed the largest dog fighting raid in US history.  We rescued over 500 animals from dog fighting rings across Missouri and Illinois.  With such a huge influx of animals, we had to create a new, temporary shelter and bring in out of state volunteers from other agencies.  For about 6 months, I was responsible for managing an additional 300 people including making travel arrangements, issuing reimbursements and training.  It was a huge undertaking but completely worth it.  We were able to adopt out over 200 of these great dogs and I was able to meet amazing volunteers from all over the country.

2.)    How does HSMO calculate the value of volunteers to your organization?

With many organizations, it’s easy to take volunteers for granted and assume they will always be there as “free labor”.  I have found the best way for people to realize the value of our volunteers is to put it into dollars.  In fiscal year 2009, if our organization had paid minimum wage for the service our volunteers gave, it would have cost over $400,000!

3.)    How do volunteers contribute to your ability to achieve your mission?

Our main goal is to get the animals in our shelter adopted into loving homes.  Our volunteers provide crucial training, socialization and basic care that make these animals more adoptable to families.  We also use a select group of volunteers to assist with disaster and rescue efforts.  Having them available in these high stress situations takes a huge weight off of our staff and allows them to better care for the animals.

4.)    Is the importance of volunteerism recognized throughout your organization?  How so?

Volunteers have been part of our organization since it began in 1870.  There is always room to improve staff/volunteer relations but overall I think everyone at the Humane Society of Missouri recognizes that the care of the animals would suffer if our volunteers were no longer there.

5.)    How important is training for your volunteers?    

Training is such an important aspect of utilizing volunteers.  Not only does it keep the volunteers and animals safe but it helps the volunteers to know that the organization views them as an important asset.  It shows we want to invest in them to improve their skills to better serve our animals.  We are currently updating our training program to better prepare new volunteers for the work ahead of them which I feel will greatly improve our volunteer retention rates.

6.)    Has technology enabled you to be more effective?  How so? 

Yes!  Yes!  Yes!  We are currently moving to an online orientation and application process which will free up the time of the Volunteer Department to focus on retention and training.  Also, the Civicore volunteer management database has been a huge catalyst in improving communications with our volunteers.  It makes it so simple to contact everyone that I am able to easily do weekly, monthly and quarterly communications with nearly 600 people.  

Thanks, Laura!

HSMO operates in 4 locations across central Missouri, has a volunteer force of about 600 people, and manages their volunteer workforce through a CiviCore Volunteer Management software platform.  Here's what they have to say about their work: "The Humane Society of Missouri is dedicated to second chances.  We provide a safe and caring haven to all animals in need - large and small - that have been abused, neglected, or abandoned.  Our mission is to end the cycle of abuse and pet overpopulation through our rescue and investigation efforts, spay/neuter programs, and educational classes.  We are committed to creating lasting relationships between people and animals through our adoption programs.  We further support that bond by making available world-class veterinary care, and by providing outstanding pet obedience and behavior programs.  www.hsmo.org

Atlanta Victim Assistance goes live with CiviCore Victim Services

We are excited to announce that Atlanta Victim Assistance (AVA), an Atlanta, Georgia based "non-profit 501(C)3 organization dedicated to helping crime victims and witnesses deal with their unique situations," has recently gone live with CiviCore's Victim Services Case Management System.

As the number of people AVA provides services to increased over the years, the Access database they used to manage their cases became increasingly inadequate for their reporting and management needs.  In order to address this issue, AVA partnered with CiviCore and replaced their access database with our web-based, infinitely scalable, and highly reportable database solution which helps them both manage their cases as well as produce sophisticated reports for grant funding sources.

We are proud to announce that our Victim Services Case Management System deployed for AVA is now handling data on more than 12,000 cases and nearly 30,000 people.  They are using the system (heavily) on a daily basis, and we hope that our technology is helping AVA achieve their mission of providing "comprehensive services that remove barriers, strengthen victims and their families and foster a healthy transition from victim to survivor."

CiviCore launches VIM - a FREE Visual Impact Mapping tool

CiviCore is excited to announce the launch of our first ever FREE piece of database software.  You can access the tool from the "free vim tool" link on our website, http://www.civicore.com, or directly from http://vim.civicore.com. VIM, short for Visual Impact Mapping, gives nonprofit organizations the ability to upload and manage a list of projects they are involved with using our extremely easy and intuitive software, and then to visually display these projects laid over a google maps interface.  Screenshot below (with more below the break):

We envision this tool being useful, for example, to foundations who would like to manage the grants they have distributed across communities, cities, or states and then showcase their work to others via the extremely familiar Google maps interface.  There are a number of other possible uses for this tool, and we are eager to share this technology as a token of our gratitude towards "people making a difference."  Enjoy!

CiviCore to attend Council on Foundations Convention this weekend!

CiviCore is excited to announce that we will be attending the Council on Foundations' annual conference in Denver, Colorado, this weekend.  The conference is titled "Intersections: Social Change, Social Justice, Social Innovation.  Explore philanthropy's role in moving markets, policy, civic engagement, and technology to promote public good."  The event will be held at the Hyatt Regency Denver at the Colorado Convention Center from April 25-27.   Check out more information about the conference on the COF's website.

We have a high level of respect for the work that COF does, and we think that our work here at CiviCore falls right in line with the the subject of this year's conference.  We are passionate about leveraging technology to help make nonprofits more efficient and effective in their missions, whatever they may be.

If you are able to make it to the conference, please come visit us at booth 127.  We'll be showing off some new products, including Civic Indicators, a free Visual Impact Mapping tool, and perhaps a few others.  We look forward to seeing you there!

CiviCore Interviews Dr. Mentor

Last week, CiviCore had the opportunity to interview Dr. Susan Weinberger, a nationally recognized leader in the subject of Mentoring.  

Dr. Weinberger (aka. "Dr. Mentor") is the former Chair of the Public Policy Council of MENTOR/National Mentoring Partnership, and is a consultant to the U.S. Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, Labor, and Justice on their mentoring initiatives.  Amongst other accolades, she also traveled to the White House in 1993 to receive President Clinton's coveted Volunteer Action Award for her work in mentoring.  

We would like to thank Dr. Mentor for taking the time to chat with us, and for all the good work she does in the mentoring field.  Below is the transcript of our interview:

1. Are you seeing any new trends in mentoring that are showing positive results?

Funding for mentoring in the future has already begun to focus on involving not only the mentor and mentee, but the family of the mentee as well. I believe this could be the “win win” of mentoring. When parents – or better yet families which include extended families, guardians, caregivers, grandparents and great grandparents – are involved in mentoring we will make great gains. My recommendation has been to invite “families” three to four times a year to events with mentors and mentees. Topics in addition to good food, baby sitting for younger children and transportation include suggestions around how to read to your own child, dealing with conflicts and their resolution, depression, bullying, goal setting and how to work on improving attendance and getting involved at school with a child’s teachers. This will be the future of mentoring.

I created a F.A.M.I.L.Y. mentoring series many years ago. The acronym stands for Families And Mentors Involved in Learning with Youth. It invites families to not only come together with mentors and mentees but offers opportunities for the families to advance personally and professionally. This means presentations on how they can earn their GED or write a resume and apply for employment. What a wonderful thought for the future of mentoring.

  2.)    What are the most important things nonprofits should consider when thinking about evaluation?  Why?

Evaluation is not a dirty word. It is instead a great opportunity to consider strengths and program achievements and areas that need improvement. As soon as mentoring programs stop shying away from the value of evaluation and understand the benefits, their initiatives will grow and strengthen. Funders want to know: “how do you know that your program is working?” Evaluation answers the question. Strong evaluations bring in the money!

Programs must conduct both process and outcome evaluations. If a mentoring program does not have the money to conduct what may be an extensive evaluation, there are many local universities with departments that are happy to conduct the evaluations, report the results and get credit for doing so, usually pro bono.   3.)    What are some of the biggest challenges you see organizations face with regard to evaluation?

There is such a fear which should not be. Evaluation is a critical component of a successful program. Cost of the evaluation is often prohibitive but it does not have to be. My own company has so many pre-post surveys for mentors, mentees, educators and parents that yield wonderful results and are used for applying for state and federal grants. It should not be an issue. I think the biggest challenge is that mentoring coordinators are hired to recruit, screen, train and match mentors with mentees. That in itself is a daunting assignment. Then they are told that they not only have to supervise and monitor the matches but they have to fund raise, market the program and oh my gosh – gather data and conduct a yearly evaluation, too. Coordinators are just not adequately trained to do all of these assignments. This is a big challenge and it does not have to be. Companies like mine provide technical assistance, training and guidance to make a challenge a delight.

4.)    From your perspective, what are the important things to consider in implementing database technology in a mentoring organization?

This is a no brainer. Gathering data about every facet of a mentoring program is critical to success. Federal grants require it. Local funders insist on it. Today there is absolutely no question that at your finger tips has to be all the important data collection to give you information from the completion of the screening process and when a match is made to school attendance, grades, and every piece of data to track a program. I am not sure that any mentoring program can be effective today without database technology. I was not asked to say this but I am so thrilled with the hundreds of mentoring programs that use Civicore’s database technology and have all the needed information at their finger tips.

I remember in the old days of mentoring if a coordinator was asked how many male VS female mentors they have, the average length of a match, or how many match closure were made in any given year, they would stare in to space. My we have come a long way.

  5.)    You travel more than anyone we know.  Where does your energy come from? I attribute my drive, my energy, my excitement to one seven            letterword –  PASSION. I believe so much in the power of mentoring.  Multiple mentors in my life contributed to my success from an early age through college and beyond. My own involvement with my mentee for 16 years cemented my belief in how mentoring can make a difference. If I did not believe, if I did not have passion, I could never get on a plane every day, every week to share my wisdom and enthusiasm with people all across the world. It is so exhilarating. I also believe that every child in America that could benefit from a mentor deserves one. I cannot do it alone. I am a grandmother of five grandchildren. I am in the twilight years and I need to ensure that others carry on the passion. I am working at this every day and so happy, blessed, thrilled, and thankful for this wonderful journey.

Will Jeffries joins our team

CiviCore is proud to announce that we have added a new member to our team: Will Jeffries.  Will will be involved in both graphic design and application development here at CiviCore.

Will has previously done graphic design work for Pearson Publishers as well as Flow Snowboarding International, and has had his work published in journals such as the Boston Weekly Dig and Detour Anthology. While his passion is graphic design, Will also helps out with development in a number of application niches here at CiviCore.

Will received his BFA in Communication Design from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in May of 2009.

Welcome to the team, Will!

CiviCore, Operation Jump Start present at Friends For Youth

CiviCore Partner Rich Rainaldi recently presented alongside Operation Jump Start Executive Director Dara Cerwonka at the 11th Annual Friends for Youth Mentoring conference.  The presentation, titled "One Giant Leap: Moving from Paper and Spreadsheets to an Integrated Database Tracking System," was a resounding success and CiviCore was thrilled to have such a great opportunity.


We would like to thank Dara Cerwonka of Operation Jump Start as well as Sarah Kremer of Friends for Youth for making such a fantastic event happen, and we look forward to the 2012 Friends For Youth Mentoring Conference!

4 new Rebuilding Together affiliates partner with CiviCore!

CiviCore is excited to announce the arrival of 4 new Rebuilding Together affiliate offices to the Rebuilding Together Volunteer Management System.  We recently added the offices in Orlando, Detroit, Broome County, and Orange County to our large (and growing!) list of Rebuilding Together affiliates.

We are proud to announce that we have now partnered with more than 40 Rebuilding Together offices across the country, and we look forward to continuing to help out this fantastic organization with their volunteer management needs.

COVA Praises CiviCore

Here at CiviCore, we take pride in client satisfaction with our products and services.  Because of this, it is particularly gratifying for us to hear back from old clients about their successes with CiviCore.  We were thrilled to receive the note below this week from COVA, a client who uses CiviCore database technology to track and manage Victim Assistance and Victim Services in Colorado:

"I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank CiviCore for all the hard work and flexibility in creating/maintaining our Online Crime Victim Services Directory.  As I track unique visits to the Directory, I've noticed that not only is it an extremely valuable resource used by many, many folks all around the State of Colorado, but it has received visits from all over the world, too!  I use Google Analytics to track usage, and just gush with pride every time I have the opportunity to share with our Board of Directors how many visits we get from the US, Canada, Mexico, Spain, France, Malaysia, etc.!  Much of this is due to the user-friendly interface you have so patiently worked with us to create, it seems that anyone can access the information.  So a big THANK YOU to you from everyone here at the Colorado Organization for Victim Assistance!"

EscuelaParaMisHijos.org goes live!

CiviCore is happy to announce that the Spanish Language version of our School Choice tool has been launched at www.escuelaparamishijos.org.  The project is sponsored by Univision, the largest Spanish-language television station in the United States.

We are thrilled to be able to give the same school choice functionality found on coloradoschoolchoice.org to the Spanish-speaking population of Colorado, and we look forward to EscuelaParaMisHijos.org helping thousands of parents in making the right school choice for their children.

GivingFirst.org tops $1million in donations for 2009!

We are proud to announce that GivingFirst.org, a Community First Foundation giving site powered by CiviCore's giving platform, processed more than $1 million in donations during the 2009 calendar year.  The donations processed by GivingFirst increased almost every month of the year, concluding with more than $500,000 given in December!

We would like to congratulate not only GivingFirst, but also the people of Colorado, for their commitment to giving.  Here's to GivingFirst having an even more successful 2010!

Ryan Holden joins our team

We are excited to announce that we have added Ryan Holden to our team full-time as of January of 2010. While Ryan has been heavily involved in CiviCore's application development since he joined our team in late 2008, we are excited to have him on board full-time now.

Ryan has significant experience with development in Adobe Coldfusion, SQL, PHP, C, C++, Objective C, and Java, amongst other languages. Ryan's insistence on perfection with his code paired with his vast knowledge of so many languages makes him an invaluable developer here at CiviCore.

Ryan received his B.S. in Computer Science at the Colorado School of Mines in December of 2009.

Welcome to the team, Ryan!