Improving Communications to Protect Oregon’s Outdoors

Since 1989, the Oregon Natural Desert Association has worked to protect and restore the health of Oregon’s high desert in the eastern part of the state. As the only organization devoted exclusively to protecting this beautiful and environmentally sensitive part of the state, ONDA claims some impressive victories including the creation of the nation’s first “cow-free” wilderness in 2000 at Steens Mountain in southeast Oregon and the removal of livestock grazing from the Hart Mountain National Wildlife Refuge in 1992 and the wild and scenic Owyhee River six years later.

But by 2005 ONDA’s internal and external communications infrastructure had fallen far behind the organization’s needs. With only one volunteer webmaster, updating the ONDA website was a frustrating, time-consuming process for staffers. “Our one volunteer was trying to be as responsive as possible,” says ONDA Membership Coordinator Pete Hickok. “But with six or seven people all wanting to put up content at the same time and not knowing how to, it was a total bottleneck.”

ONDA’s donor-management database was also becoming increasingly dysfunctional. It was difficult to use and didn’t do a good job of tracking the group’s donors and approximately 1,000 members. Important groups such as volunteers weren’t showing up in the database and ONDA staff were having a hard time extracting information about their supporters—a must for any successful nonprofit. The result was inefficiency and missed opportunities to connect with people. “We didn’t have a complete view of our donors,” says Hickok.

Updating the Database

Faced with this, Hickok started to research alternatives for databases and got in touch with ONE/Northwest’s Portland office. His timing was serendipitous. ONE/Northwest has just hired Program Manager Steve Andersen to start up its database consulting program. It was a perfect fit. ONDA needed a new more flexible and functional database and ONE/Northwest was looking for a database pilot project.

Andersen’s first task at ONE/Northwest was figuring out which database best fit the needs and budgets of the environmental nonprofits. When ONDA contacted him, Andersen just settled on Salesforce.com’s web-based constituent relationship management system because of its flexibility, usability and low-cost. After some conversations Andersen sold Hickok on becoming an “early adopter” of Salesforce.com. Next, Andersen worked with ONDA staff to map out ONDA’s internal processes, so that he could create a database system that would capture all of the organization’s key program areas, supporters and processes. (More information about Andersen’s donor process maps.) Hickok says that ONDA also benefited from ONE/Northwest’s review because it showed where existing processes could be simplified, saving the organization time and effort.

The customized Salesforce.com database that ONE/Northwest built helps ONDA:

• Run major donor campaigns by tracking potential donors, assigning board solicitors, tracking realized revenue and sending acknowledgments for gifts.

• Run its membership program by tracking the status of all members, processing payments, and sending appeals to people with expiring memberships.

• Manage its volunteer program by connecting prospects with scheduled volunteer trips, tracking important metrics to program success (number of volunteers, miles of fence removed from wilderness areas, etc.), and easily keeping tabs on volunteer hours.

• Support other processes such as tracking retailers for ONDA’s Oregon Wild Desert Calendar sales program, keeping tabs on attendance for house parties and festivals and measuring the success of appeals and events.

A New Website: Matching Audience with Content

After the launch of the new database in 2006, ONDA was ready to turn its attention to its website. This time Hickok worked with Drew Bernard, ONE/Northwest’s program manager in Portland, who helped ONDA review its communications strategy and identify the audiences important to the organization. “They had a lot of content on their website,” Bernard says. “But they had not thought much about their audiences, so the information was hard to find. I wanted to help ONDA think about the folks they are trying to communicate with and use that as a guide for presenting their work differently.”

The result is a new site that launched in March with newly organized content, easy navigation and stunning photos throughout the site that showcase the beauty of Oregon’s high desert. Volunteers, members, visitors and businesses can all easily find information relevant to them. And because the site is powered by Plone, an open-source content management system, ONDA staff can easily update the site without having to wait for a webmaster or an HTML expert. “We now have a web presence that is up-to-date and better reflects what we are doing,” Hickok points out.

It is still too early to measure success in increased website traffic, but Hickok says ONDA has already been getting positive feedback from users. And he is already thinking expanding the usefulness of the site with such ideas as interactive maps. Bernard is also enthusiastic. “ONDA has put in place all the pieces for a really successful website,” he says. “Now they have to focus on utilizing all those tools to the fullest capacity and we will definitely be working with them to get that done.”