Month: June 2017

Call for companies to visit on The Power Trip at ASAE Annual Meeting

At ASAE’s 2016 Technology Conference, I hosted The Power Trip, a guided tour of the trade show floor to introduce participants to CEOs of leading association technology companies with various funding models, and to learn about how their funding philosophy affects product delivery and support.

I’m going to do round two of The Power Trip at ASAE’s 2017 Annual Meeting in Toronto, August 12-15, 2017. Today, I’m calling all technology companies that would like to have a handful of highly tuned-in association technology executives and consultants delivered straight to your booth for a meet and greet, and to tell the story of why your funding model makes your company awesome.

Requirements:

  1. CEO must be present in your company’s trade show booth at an appointed time to greet participants. I’ll work with you to arrange a time that agrees with your schedule.
  2. I’m looking for a good mix of privately-held, private equity backed (majority and minority owned), and venture capital backed companies.

Complete this form to raise your hand and express interest:

Was your organization hacked by the Russians during the presidential election?

This post is a little off-topic, but I thought it might be of interest to not-for-profit and association technology executives who aspire to understand the powerful forces beyond our control that affect our organizations’ operations.

Ed Schipul is CEO of Tendenci, an open source AMS — well, frankly, the only open source AMS. Very thoughtful and techie guy, but not someone who runs in the same circles as the other AMS vendors.

My eyes widened when I read on his blog that former FBI director James Comey testified that the Russians had hacked hundreds of — and perhaps 1,000+ — nonprofits and NGOs in their efforts to sway the 2016 US presidential election.

Ed believes that some of his clients were targeted:

I can personally confirm it was in the hundreds just based on our client base. This does NOT mean they breached, but targeted? Yes.

His analysis and advice is worth reading.

No investment or M&A activity announced at AMS Fest

Sometimes a rumor turns out to be just that. There were no investments, mergers, acquisitions, or consolidations announced during the Hot Off the Press segment at AMS Fest. Watch the archived Facebook Live broadcast.

RUMOR: AMS consolidation expected this week

I’m at AMS Fest this week and rumors are swirling that an AMS deal is about to be announced. At 2pm EDT today, the Hot Off The Press segment of AMS Fest will be broadcast live on the ReviewMyAMS.com facebook page. Watch live for announcements!

OPINION: What I’ve learned during the past 60 days

The following is an opinion piece from the EVP of Membership Solutions at Community Brands, Dan Gaertner. At AMS Fest (June 7-8, 2017 in Chicago) Dan will appear on a panel discussion about the M&A and investment activity in the NFP technology sector.

Since the inception of Community Brands and having met many Abila customers at the Abila User and Developer Conference (AUDC) in early April 2017, and rubbed elbows with hundreds of YourMembership (YM) customers at the Xperience annual user conference later the same month, it’s been validated for me that technology providers serving associations and associations partnering with technology providers need a boost to help the industry grow and better meet missions.

The past 60 days has authenticated for me one of the primary reasons a company like Community Brands is needed for both the association and nonprofit markets. And, it confirms why we’ve started to bring technology-leading companies together in this space.

In my past role as chief product officer at YourMembership and new role as executive vice president of membership solutions at Community Brands, I’ve spent much of the past couple of months traveling around the country getting to know the people, the challenges, the opportunities and the strategy behind each organization. And now we are bringing that collective wisdom together of Abila, Aptify, NimbleUser and YourMembership at Community Brands.

What have I learned?

  1. We all have similar challenges.
  2. We have a massive amount of combined experience and industry knowledge.
  3. We are all dedicated to serving an inspiring market.

Different companies, same challenges.

To no one’s surprise, we are saddled with similar challenges. We’re all trying to serve a customer base and market each brand has identified. And, while point solutions exist in the market, by combining these organizations, we’re creating a broad suite of products which can truly serve the market end-to-end.

Each brand has its challenges evolving their AMS product. The unique needs, change in staff, complex configurations and the customizations which come with large and small associations introduce unforeseen defects and make upgrades more challenging.

We now have an opportunity to come together to share best practices and perhaps educate both sides (the customer and Community Brands) about how to innovate and standardize in our market. We need to focus less on the technology and more on the strategy of how to increase membership and make content easier for members to consume.

It’s impossible to innovate without knowledge and skill.

By joining together these groups, it also allows us to bring innovation in a way we can’t do as well as individual companies. There’s no doubt there are some talented industry business leaders, thought leaders and engineers throughout these organizations. It’s a powerful balance when you combine long-time industry leaders, former association executives and outside technologists.

When I joined YM as chief product officer nearly two-and-a-half years ago, I had no previous experience in the association space. You ask: How could they bring in a guy with no experience with associations to lead the product strategy for one of the largest SaaS solutions in the industry? The answer is simple for me. Fresh eyes, different perspective collaborating with industry experts can make for a powerful combination.

A lot of the businesses, associations and products we’ve brought together have been doing the same things for years and innovation hasn’t kept up with challenges facing the industry. We’re now leading innovation with a lot of smart people who have fresh eyes and distinct perspectives, and I think this gives us an exceptional opportunity to build and evolve association management software products and technology solutions into something to better serve the association market.

Associations and nonprofits inspire us.

Before I arrived at YM, I had never seen a company—from top to bottom—work as hard as the employees at YourMembership. It’s amazing how much is accomplished with so little. I thought to myself: “This isn’t normal.” Well, now I’ve learned it’s normal throughout this industry, because the same approach is happening at Abila, Aptify and NimbleUser.

Employees care about the causes of their customers and believe in the value and impact we each bring to the industry. And, it’s easy to be inspired when, for example, we’re seeing associations and nonprofits use technology to provide a better life for underprivileged children and to help families cope and deal with terminal illnesses.

We believe we can serve the association and nonprofit markets by bringing together smart people who can help build better integrated products and help those markets achieve greater success. And, that’s what our customers are betting on.

Watch “Hot off the Press” at AMS Fest on Wednesday, June 7

If you like what you’re reading on theNIRD.org, you may be interested in “Hot off the Press,” a segment of AMS Fest that will be broadcast on Facebook Live at 1pm CDT on Wednesday, June 7, 2017.

There’s a strong possibility that some significant announcements will be made during this 15 minute session, and by tuning into the Facebook Live broadcast, you’ll be among the first to know about them.

Want to join the excitement? Go to Facebook, like the ReviewMyAMS Page, and then visit the ReviewMyAMS page as we go live for “Hot off the Press,” this Wednesday at 1pm CDT during AMS Fest.