Change is Hard: LeMay Museum's Communication Strategy for Success

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We all know that change is hard, even when it’s for the best. As LeMay Museum prepared to open their doors to the public in June 2012, they knew they needed the 360 degree view that Altru Museum Management Software could provide. But Development Database Coordinator, Ashlee Taulbee also realized that implementing Altru meant that there would be some cultural shifts in the organization. When transitioning from one database software to another, organizations face the challenge of unlearning their previous paradigm while learning the language of the new software. New museums face an equally difficult challenge: no precedents at all, creating something from scratch, an exciting and overwhelming proposition!

In order to leverage the holistic nature of Altru, LeMay Museum was diligent in their communications to their entire staff, keeping everyone informed in an open and honest way. As we mentioned in our last change management blog, over communication can really influence the success of a conversion.

Here are some things we suggest including in your communications, with quotes from Ashley's internal newsletter to LeMay Museum:

1.       Reinforce the Value of the Change

“Despite some of the day-to-day challenges we sometimes experience, Altru was the smartest choice for our organization and is far more advanced than many other non-profit development databases. The main reason it is such a good fit: we don’t have to integrate multiple systems that don’t directly communicate.”

2.      Explain WHY the Change is Valuable/Needed

"Typically, development databases are not integrated with other key operational systems like admissions and ticketing, educational programs and events, online sales, merchandise, or group sales and facility rentals, marketing communications, and volunteer management. This lack of integration makes it impossible to capture a cohesive snapshot of a donor’s involvement in the organization. Synchronizing information from these systems often requires costly consultant fees to develop custom workarounds. This option can also be very cumbersome since one has to constantly update the workaround if the data is reconfigured, or the vendor updates the software."

3.      Be Honest about the Difficulty of Change

"One unforeseen challenge of Altru’s unified software approach is that we must adjust our internal practices to ensure that the departments working within the Altru database are not unknowingly working against each other or doubling efforts. In other words, our internal process must be adjusted to more closely mimic the holistic approach of Altru. If we can achieve this, it will allow us to create more cohesive history reports based on an individual’s traits and their specific interests in the organization – and thereby better track their involvement across all departments."

4.      Warn the Group about Possible Pitfalls

"For many aspects of our data, such as ticketing, we are fortunate enough to have started with a clean slate within Altru - but we need to make sure the integrity of the data is maintained. Currently some potential threats are: non-standardization of naming conventions, unused and muddied queries & attributes, loss of historical data due to misuse of functionality, and creating duplicate constituent entry. Failure to avoid or catch these mistakes can and will have negative effects on our ability to report accurately and efficiently."

5.      Challenge Others to Do Their Part

"Since our organization isn't currently set up to have someone overseeing the management of the data, each of us has to take the time to understand how the system was meant to work and to do our part to input data correctly. One way we can achieve this holistic approach is by taking advantage of the instructor-led training or self-paced online classes offered by Blackbaud. Another resource is the Altru Community where you can ask questions, suggest ideas, and get feedback from other organizations using Altru. Most importantly, I recommend we model our behavior after the Altru Community by simply talking to each other about our ideas, relying on each other’s experiences, and asking for feedback from other departments."

6.       Set the Stage for Future Growth

"In addition, we should contemplate which areas of Altru we are not using that could help us capture a broader look at our organization’s initiatives. Currently, we have opted not to use the facility rentals and volunteer management functionality. This choice is potentially limiting our abilities to leverage the use of historical records in service of future fundraising."

7.       Explain the Benefits of Your Hard Work/Why It’s All Worth It

"The more we develop and follow procedures the better we will be able to preserve the viability and value of our data and the better we can utilize the organization’s data resources to build our audience and, in return, build revenue."

 

Ashley’s suggestions are not only great practical advice, but they also highlight something really critical about implementing Altru: While Altru provides the technology to integrate multiple databases into one solution, people and the processes are just as crucial to the success of Altru.  Ultimately, engaging the entire team in the process of change creates stakeholders who care about the integrity of their data and ensure success.



 

Thanks so much to Ashley Taulbee for her willingness to share her internal process! You can get to know Ashley in the community!

Currently in transition? Still facing challenges? Want to talk about it? We're here for you!

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