Business Zone Information

http://www.business2oakland.com/main/broadway.htm

This is the business zone that the church is in.

More info for street improvements here:
http://www.business2oakland.com/main/commercialdistrictincentives.htm

http://oaklandbusinesscenter.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=19&Itemid=86

More info:
There are very few grant programs available to small businesses in Oakland or anywhere in the U.S.  Most grants are for non-profit organziations.  However, the City of Oakland does offer a matching grant program, and some organizations provide grants to business owners who complete their business training programs. 
Facade Improvement Matching Grant Program
The City provides matching grants to businesses in designated areas to renovate their exteriors. Free architectural assistance and 50 percent matching grants of between $10,000 and $30,000 are available to property and business owners for eligible projects. Grant funds can be used to rehabilitate and repair exterior
commercial building facades and exterior improvements. The program also covers up to $5,000 of architecture fees.
Contact the Commercial Property Façade Improvement Program staff for more information:
510.238.3015 (Downtown)
510.238.3699 (Neighborhoods)

Tenant Improvement Grants
If you are renting a space for an entertainment or retail business in one of the targeted areas of downtown, central, west, north and Coliseum areas, you may be eligible for a Tenant Improvement Grant. Grants cover 50 percent of tenant improvement costs, up to $10 per square foot. The program also covers up to $5,000 of interior design/architecture fees.

Using Pentecost Sunday as a Re-Welcoming Day / Second Push

Besides an early target for using Holy Week for potential kick start to welcoming efforts the next major day in the church Calendar we could sync up and do a second outreach using the lessons learned would be Pentecost.

Pentecost (May 23rd) could be our big push to get Welcoming done right and do a real marketing campaign with follow-up survey.  Format could be to focus on that Family Reunion, Re-welcoming / Revitalizing the Church / Raise the Spirits.  Not sure if we ar near any specific anniversary year or not but that too could be a theme/message.

Tools: Flow Charting Software

When documenting web sites, user experiences, processes and workflow -- a very good tool to have is Flow Charting software or Online Service.  It can go hand and hand integrated in project management software or totally separate.  Some tools exist for helping writers scaffold their ideas visually while others are more specialized like manufacturing or software development.  A good one can create useful visual representations from a org charts to Venn Diagrams to Mind Maps to standard business planning like SWOT to wire framing user interface.  These pieces of software have various names and functionality -- Outliners and Diagrammers also fall into the category.

Representing complex systems visually really helps you find drop outs, dead-ends and bottle necks and give you a much simplified way to explain and keep people who are not process oriented within the logic of a process so you can really discuss and improve it.

Good sites for doing this online are:

• Gliffy.com
• Mindmeister.com
• TheBrain.com
• DropMind.com
• List of several "free" options

Traditional Software:

• SmartDraw
• Mind Jet

There are also several iPhone/iPod Touch apps that mostly fall into organizer or mind mapper.

Looking for Champions

On a process level to actually get something done we need some internal champions.  These would be people on the the Vestry as well as long term key members.  The champions would be the ones if in agreement to help pursue the resources including financial to support the effort and sometimes more importantly to provide air cover and support for the disruption/change that needs to occur.

I'm starting that process to reach out facilitated by another key champion in our case the Rector.

Refining and wording of goals, objectives and solutions -- as well as presentation materials for the rest of the Vestry & Congregation are another critical area for champion support.

Using technology to enable communication and deeper relationships

I guess you could call this the case for modern customer service but I call it the 20th century.  There is an awful lot you can do as a church to meet each others needs in a one-on-one way but it takes those "pesky" welcoming, caring and knowledgeable people to do so.  Unfortunately those welcoming people tend to usually be at least as busy as we are and things can fall through the cracks.

So that is where technology should meet process and limit the loss of information, enable communication and strengthen relationships in the process.  Contact management with sales lead processing, pipelining and forecasting is a pretty well practiced science in a lot of big businesses.  There are a number of good tools out there some that reside on one PC, a local network of computers or served on the internet.  Some are web enabled letting anyone with the proper security credentials log-in while others require specialized software to access.  Some automate multi-step processes while others simply are task lists.  Some embrace the move to mobile access to data while some can't even synch with a PDA, let alone a cell phone. A lot of the software is frozen code that is seldom patched while some can be customized and updated in seconds.

From Salesforce.com to SAP to Act to Outlook -- there are a number of options for contact management and sales management.  Then there are "vertical" applications for solving business needs for specific industries or solving business problems for certain roles.  There are a very large and diverse set of software some commercial and a few open source that serve as Church Management Systems (ChMS).   The quality and feature set is diverse as is the market they are targeting from small to giga-churches.

Many of the solutions are modular but the needs we are considering most now are in Contact Management, Data Management and Business Automation.  Donation management is a nice feature as it can help track the involvement on that level and show warning signs.  Group, Volunteer and Event management are in the next tier for us with Facilities Management an Check-In/Out being last.  Separately some providers have Content Management Systems (CMS) to help delegate and manage portions or all of a churches web site.  Some light CMS can be done in blog software or third-party apps.  The positive of integration is one user name/password/permission set.  Another feature in some software is the addition of online communities - some are a inelegant mix of freeware and others have a minimal feature set.  For online communication and marketing it may be best to look for a CMS that supports automatically posting information out / syndicating to Facebook and Twitter vs. expecting that a ChMS will move to solve that problem over time.

So what are the things I think an ideal modern church needs:
0) Web based interface to allow remote access
1) Mobile access via iPhone / Droid or at least Synch of significant chunks of contact data
2) Capture and track attendees (visitors, attendees and members) including sourcing & scraping from emails
3) Contact information and preferences for everyone in the system
4) Self service so that members can log-in and update personal information
5) Ability to track and document all communication with an individual and household
6) Ability to have private fields or notes whose access is limited
7) Ability to have custom forms with custom fields and reporting on those to track unique data
8) Ability to mail merge both emails and letters & post cards saving and sharing templates
9) Ability to send email campaigns and track receipt, open and response
10) Inclusion of an RSVP/Reg button as well as Send to a Friend capture contact in campaign email
11) Texting gateway to send texts directly or through 3rd party provider
12) Integration with Voice mail gateway to send out pre-recorded blasts to specified groups, sub groups
13) Integration with Google Voice to take in transcribed voice mails and post to user records based on phone numbers
14) Integration with Chat server to allow based on rules access to chat online with a member/person.
15) Automated workflows to help pipeline people into and through the church
16) Email and/or additional outgoing notification to users on the work/follow ups in their pipeline - "tickler"
17) Integrated min-survey to send out automatically or as a link in email templates
18) Ability to reassign tasks in the pipeline manually but ideally automatically based on rules
19) Ability to control user security to who has access to what information on a granular/functional level
20) Significant security and at least 99.9% scheduled uptime and limit of scheduled downtime to 10 hours/year.
21) Integration with Google Maps to easily plot and see locations, nearby members, get directions.
22) Search engine friendly URLs
23-1billion) Reporting and analytics - flexible, responsive near real time, key metrics reporting of the data --- plus analytics for web traffic if they have a built-in CMS.

For ChMS:
I am actively researching Fellowship One, Connect.Power, Ascribe and possibly Kingdom Tools.

For CMS:
I've also been talking with Ed the web master on the CMS choices -- WordPress, Perch and Unify are all on the table.  There are a very large number of options -- one consideration is the time and cost to develop a template.  I'm biased toward WordPress as it has syndication tools/plug-ins to post content out to Facebook and Twitter automatically.  Ideally the CMS would allow for multiple CSS stylizations so a site could be more mobile phone friendly but remain semi-dynamic.

Outside tools:
1) Email Campaign Management: If we can't find all the email campaign functionality we may have to look at outside options to supplement.  We'd possibly needs a gateway to get the mailing list out and hopefully a gateway to get the results pulled back in.  There are a number of major, minor and open source options here. (Constant Contact, etc.)
2) Survey system: Preferably integrated to ask mini-surveys and give opportunities for more feedback points. Results could then be quantified and individual responses if it was not anonymous could be attached to the user record as a note.  Outside survey software may still be preferable for advanced features. (Survey Monkey, etc)
3) Incoming Voice Mail Transcription and call routing: Using Google Voice and linked email account to suck data into the system and route to a user record and into workflow.
4) Outgoing Voice Mail Forwarding: Record automated messages with a key response from live user to connect to church/volunteer.  "Offline" version of an email campaign/blast.  Notation of being on list sent out to be batch recorded to user record. (OneCallNow, Phonevite, etc.)
5) Website Based Chat: Option on the web site to have a user launch a chat and be connected to a member/office for more information/follow-up.  Standard scripts/replies available for response as well as user can customize.  Transcripts can be attached to user account in CMS. (ZopIM, etc.)
6) Information scraping tools: Contact Capture or LinkedIn that scans the emails and addresses in your account and automatically batch adds them to the system.  (Broadlook Technologies - Contact Capture, Eclipse, etc)

Importance of Personae and Use Cases / Scenarios

In developing better "customer service" or sales -- personae are integral to understanding who you are serving, what capabilities or limitations they may have, what they might want and level of personal interaction they want vs. should receive.  After you've got these you can then use them as a guide to help setup a system that brings them into the "funnel" and can follow up effectively and report back.

Personae like:

Joan is a 40-year old divorced single mother of 2 teenagers.  She has a cell phone, email and home PC on broadband.  She considers herself computer literate but shuns social networking sites.  She prefers email over phone calls because of her busy schedule.  She needs to schedule things well in advance as she is regularly cabbie for the kids.

Ted is a 24-year old single straight guy who is very tech savvy and is a web developer by day.  He has an iPhone, Broadband, etc.  He is a member of Facebook but doesn't care for blogs.  Best way to reach him is to text (or FB) as he never listens to voice mails and he gets too many emails.  He has a lot of free time on weekends just broke up with a long term girl friend.  He takes public transit or rides his bike if weather is good.

Rick is a 14-year old but does not have home access to a computer.  He has a basic cell phone which has unlimited texting and minutes.  He plays computer games and listens to his iPod.  He text messages a lot but does not get very many calls -- he doesn't even know is Voicemail password.  He never gets his messages on the home phone.  He has a lot of free time but no transportation.  

Georgia is a 60 year old who has a dated home computer and a dial-up connection to the internet - she logs on every 3-5 days.  She has a cell phone but with very limited minuted and only uses it for emergency.  She has a home phone which she prefers to use and is often busy and an old answering machine.  She still works part time and volunteers with several groups.  She spends a good portion of her personal time gardening outside or taking care of the grandkids at her daughters home.  She drives independently but limits travel to 10-20 mile trips.

Arthur is a 80 year old widower with no computer or internet connection.  He has no cell phone.  He has a home phone but rarely uses it.  He reads the paper, watches TV for news and gets his mail.  His only socializing is at Church and the Senior Center.  He no longer drives.

Alice is 32 year old married mother to be.  She has a laptop and a WiFi connection she shares with the neighbors.  She works full time and in front of a computer all day.  She has a cell phone with a web browser and she texts her friends more than she talks to them. She uses Facebook infrequently mainly to connect with old friends or to share photos. She has no land line at home.  She shares a car with her husband but he does not attend church.

Luke and Laura are a married couple that live together.  They have a home PC, Laptop and wireless internet connected to broadband.  Both travel for work regularly leaving their schedules and time together limited.  Both have cell phones but Luke is not supposed to use his for anything other than work and family emergencies.  Luke's phone is a Blackberry and he can read both work and personal emails.  Laura has a standard phone and only knows how to make calls and take photos that only ever stay on the phone.  They have a home phone with voice mail but only Laura seems to check it.  Both have their own transportation and drive separately often to the same place as they then have other errands to complete.  Laura keeps the family schedule in her head but is often disappointed at changes/disruptions due to Luke's work.

Use Case / Scenarios might be:

Want to get married in the church

Need help getting groceries

Recently diagnosed with cancer

Moved to the area

Death of someone close

Interested in an upcoming event

Steps to Growth – Piece 1: Catch, Tra...

Initial Draft of 1/2 of the Plan....

Steps to Growth – Piece 1: Catch, Track, Engage &
Re-Engage

1. Agree on goals and first steps <Timeline 4 weeks>
1. Set Goals
2. Set Objectives
3. Set Timeline
4. Set Initial Budget
5. Set Funding Source / Possible “Renewal and Growth” Fund
6. Define terms / vocabulary
7. Define Key Metrics
8. Survey existing members, those who rolled off the rolls,
   visitors, etc. 
9. Adjust Goals, Strategy, Objects, Timeline, etc. based on survey
   and feedback
10. Get Buy-In
11. Get Approval
2. Buy the Boat – Purchase & Develop the Tools & Processes <Timeline
   3 weeks - can run concurrent>

1. Assess the options for web based Church Management Software
2. Define the objectives for software vs. human empowerment
3. Outline basic processes we want an immediate impact
4. Weight the priorities vs. options on all top tier vendors
5. Review complimentary Technology (Broadcast Voice Mail, Google Voice
   for Call Routing, Online Chat) to engage.
6. Review options for integrating inbound/outbound communication
   with Social Networking (Twitter & Facebook)
7. Ensure our key metrics are tracking or reporting in software
   and/or auto-survey
8. Negotiate if possible any software changes/customizations
   into the price
9. Set Final Budget
10. Sign the agreement
3. Build the Net – Install  and Import <Timeline 2 – 3 Weeks Phase 1, 4
   – 6 Weeks Total>
1. Set Milestones
2. Configure software
3. Import or enter all current and previous year existing data
   (Phase 1)
4. Define and adjust business & ministry processes to the
   software to meet goals
5. Define and adjust software to meet business & ministry
   needs (MINIMIZE as this can be costly)
6. Develop initial print materials, letters, forms, etc.
7. <Ongoing> Import or enter at least 10 years worth of
   “people data” however list must be scrubbed and verified to not send to the
   deceased or moved (Phase 2)
8. Train a small circle of early software users (Ministry,
   Office Staff,etc.)
9. <Ongoing> Refine print material, letters, reporting
10. In depth software training for key stakeholders
11. Integrate forms and feeder systems into the website and
    office life
12. Work out kinks
4. Teach the Fishers – Training the Flock <Timeline – 1 Month
   but can be concurrent>
1. Written procedures / best practices manual
2. In depth software training for Ministry & Staff
3. Refine and adjust processes based on feedback of ministry
   & staff
4. Training for corps of “Welcome Volunteers” and “Engagement
   Volunteers”
5. Refine and adjust processes based on feedback of volunteer
   corps
5. Go Fishing – Implement People and Process <Timeline 3-6
   Months>
1. Begin pilot project/trial period
2. Follow through on procedures and best practices
3. Accountability for following procedures and best practices
4. Survey those impacted ministry, staff, volunteers, and most importantly
   members and customers after a set deadline.
6. Analyze / Reflect / Adjust <Timeline 1 Month after
   initial Trial Period, many concurrent/ongoing>
1. <Ongoing> Regular weekly checkpoints on if processes are
   being followed during pilot project
2. In depth retraining/cross training of all Ministry and
   Staffers on Software & Features after the first 45 days.
3. <Ongoing> Monthly reporting to Vestry of Key Metrics
4. Quarterly review of the project with feedback for the
   quarterly meeting
5. Adjust the processes based on Quarterly or Annual Reviews
   not on a daily or monthly level unless all key stake holders agree in an
   emergency changes

DATE: 2/9/10

REVISION: 0.1

PRIMARY: Peter Leahy

STATUS: DRAFT