Who supports Spark at your institution?

Eric Valdescaro

I'll take answers from any Spark client, but would prefer to hear from those at smaller sized higher-ed institutions.



Who supports Spark at your institution? Is it end-user departments (e.g. alumni relations, development, etc.), is it IT, or is it shared?



About much staffing do you dedicate to support Spark (including administration, page/template creation, email/newsletter generation, etc.)?



Thanks!

Nicole S

We are a public library with a development staff of 5. Our IT department is much larger than most other organizations I've worked at as they support the administrative offices as well as the branches and to a lesser extent the public.



You might think that this means they handle BBNC and RE, but it actually means we are more on the back burner. They handle anything server related or patches and updates, but most of the implementation and maintenance is done in our office by me.



Our web-designers have made custom templates for us that look great, but they don't really support the product. If I get absolutely stuck, I can go to them for help, but, aside from a basic understanding, they aren't trained or responsible for the product. For the sake of brand consistency, they will review pages and maintain the upkeep of templates or create new ones for me.



Like I said, we are a staff of 5. I am the DBA so I manage all of RE and BBNC. Taking on BBNC was huge. Implementation was tough. We had to coordinate between our office, web, IT and BB. And it wasn't fast. We are still in the first year, so we are having to make all of our pages from scratch. At first this was a big undertaking (having to recreate all of our giving and membership pages and 2+ events AND still learning the product), but it has died down. That being said, it was almost a full-time job at first. We are still having to make pages from scratch, but are already finding that once that is done you are able to re-use them each year. For instance, we have a summer program we need a page for, but once it is made we can simply update and use it again.



The newsletters/organizational emails are not handled by BBNC, but even if they were they would be handled by another dept. We do however send out emails to our donors about events or other things. Those lists are usually less than 300 people (most around 100) and are handled in our office. Usually by me.



I would strongly suggest that EVERYONE in your organization that may ever be involved from IT, to web, to all of development get trained. My team has not taken advantage of training and that has left me being the primary person to manage everything. This means when someone wants to send an email to 25 people they need my help. This is actually a pretty simple task, but everyone needs to be comfortable with it. Same thing with making small edits to pages.



Our gifts processor moves all transactions into the batches.



Hope this helps.

Eric Valdescaro

Nicole San Miguel:
We are a public library with a development staff of 5. Our IT department is much larger than most other organizations I've worked at as they support the administrative offices as well as the branches and to a lesser extent the public.



You might think that this means they handle BBNC and RE, but it actually means we are more on the back burner. They handle anything server related or patches and updates, but most of the implementation and maintenance is done in our office by me.



Our web-designers have made custom templates for us that look great, but they don't really support the product. If I get absolutely stuck, I can go to them for help, but, aside from a basic understanding, they aren't trained or responsible for the product. For the sake of brand consistency, they will review pages and maintain the upkeep of templates or create new ones for me.



Like I said, we are a staff of 5. I am the DBA so I manage all of RE and BBNC. Taking on BBNC was huge. Implementation was tough. We had to coordinate between our office, web, IT and BB. And it wasn't fast. We are still in the first year, so we are having to make all of our pages from scratch. At first this was a big undertaking (having to recreate all of our giving and membership pages and 2+ events AND still learning the product), but it has died down. That being said, it was almost a full-time job at first. We are still having to make pages from scratch, but are already finding that once that is done you are able to re-use them each year. For instance, we have a summer program we need a page for, but once it is made we can simply update and use it again.



The newsletters/organizational emails are not handled by BBNC, but even if they were they would be handled by another dept. We do however send out emails to our donors about events or other things. Those lists are usually less than 300 people (most around 100) and are handled in our office. Usually by me.



I would strongly suggest that EVERYONE in your organization that may ever be involved from IT, to web, to all of development get trained. My team has not taken advantage of training and that has left me being the primary person to manage everything. This means when someone wants to send an email to 25 people they need my help. This is actually a pretty simple task, but everyone needs to be comfortable with it. Same thing with making small edits to pages.



Our gifts processor moves all transactions into the batches.



Hope this helps.

Hi Nicole, thanks for sharing. Does anyone else have a different experience, or different staffing arrangement? Thanks.

Louise Williams

I work for a college with 6 Development & Alumni staff.



Four of us (including the Director of Development & Alumni and one person from IT) were trained in Net Community. One person is responsible for building the pages and creating and sending emails and one person is responsible for processing the transactions in Netcommunity.



We have had support of our IT department in terms of installation. As I mentioned above one IT guy was involved in the Netcommunity Spark training however generally doesn't use the product.



Recently we hired a part time computer student to assist us with customization and template creation.

Eric Valdescaro

Hi Louise,



Thanks so much for your reply. That is very helpful!



-Eric

Eric Valdescaro

Louise,



Follow-up question. Does your staff person responsible for processing BBNC transactions have other job duties, or is he/she mainly responsible for only NetCommunity transactions/registrations. Thanks again!

Louise Williams

Because we are a small office we all wear many hats.



The person responsible for processing BBNC transactions is also responsible for processing all donations including receipts and thank you letters, and supporting the Manager of Donor Relations & Stewardship including assisting with all special events.



I am the person responsible for the creation of web pages and email communication with BBNC however I am also responsible for research for our capital campaign and prospects. I manage the student we have building templates, he has been a huge help, he works approximately 10 hours a week.



Recently we have started processing online registrations for four other departments in the college including three conferences and a national conference (where all pages had to be created in both English and French).



We may soon get to a point where registration is too much for one person.

Eric Valdescaro

Thank you again Louise! Much appreciated! :-)