The Fund received applications requesting more than $40,000 in funding in the June round. We are pleased to confirm nine Scholarships were awarded with a total value of more than $11,000. Approximately $9,000 will now be made available for the final two rounds of funding for 2008.

Congratulations to the following Scholarship recipients:

Part A – Fully Funded Education Scholarships

Claire Black - The Wilderness Society
FIA Madison Down Under

Tarnya Van Driel - Asthma Foundation of SA
FIA Madison Down Under

Elaine Young - Australian Red Cross
Diploma of Business (Volunteer Management)

Somehow I missed posting about our Q1 customer satisfaction survey so I will cover off both Q1 and Q2 in this post. While the Q2 results were slightly improved on the Q1 results - neither were great news. In fact, in Q1 we saw the lowest satisfaction numbers we have seen since we started the surveys.

The charts below show the results by question for both Q1 and Q2 separately.

MEDIA RELEASE

June 17, 2008

iMIS Customers Preview the Future
at Business Excellence Framework Forum

The annual iMIS Business Excellence Framework (iBEF) Forum held on May 20 and 21 brought together 10 not-for-profit leaders - representing the largest users of the iMIS software solution in the Asia-Pacific region - for two days of intensive review and knowledge sharing, with the focus on achieving business excellence. Mobile phones were off, thinking caps on and best practice firmly fixed in the spotlight.

Held at historic Mansion Hotel at Werribee Park just outside Melbourne, the forum was hosted by Advanced Solutions International (ASI), the developers of iMIS. In attendance was US based chairman and CEO Bob Alves, ASI Asia-Pacific senior management and leaders from:

Help

iMIS Documentation on the web

iMIS HelpNet Document Archive (for iMIS Release Notes)

Community Sites

InsideASIAP - Asia Pacific Community Website

iMISCommunity - iMIS Developer Community

Intranet Sites

Staff Intranet Home Page

This causes issues for some members/donors because they have bank accounts with limited transaction allowance; also gateway charges the organization per transaction (not sure if this affects AIA)

There is no mechanism to go back in and delete the declined gift (user has to do it manually before the batch is posted)

Liza and I went to a seminar this afternoon hosted by Xponential where we heard Ted Hart talk about having success in online fundraising.  I hadn't heard of Ted before and I'm not sure what makes you a guru (he didn't talk at all about his success or history) but the content was good.

The presentation was about 4 hours long and was broken into two sections, a review of Web 2.0 and why this is important and then in the second half he did a live review of just about everyone's website in the room.

15.0.1 version of EFT relies on styles that have since been consolidated.

This week we kicked off a new campaign to promote Friendraising. A direct mail campaign inviting prospects to attend seminars in Melbourne (29th April in ASI office) and Sydney (30th April at the Grace Hotel) began and will be followed up with emails and phone contact.

This seminar series will focus on the concept of friendraising (rather than the product). Attached is a copy of the postcard invite and below is copy of the letter that has been posted to contacts.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Wednesday 9 April 2008

The Fund received applications requesting approximately $9,000 in funding in the March round. We are pleased to confirm six Scholarships were awarded with a total value of more than $5,000. Approximately $19,000 will now be made available for the three further rounds of funding for 2008.

Congratulations to the following Scholarship recipients:

Part A – Fully Funded Education Scholarships

Kennie Ward - OBJECT
FIA Skills 1 (NSW)

Judith Williams – Australian Breastfeeding Association
FIA Skills 1 (VIC)

Part B – Education Subsidies for ASI Customers

Janita Suter - Caritas Australia

Most mornings I arrive at our Melbourne office about 7.30 am and enjoy a coffee and a read of the Herald Sun (local paper) at one of two coffee shops located inside our building. I usually "coffee" at the Behive but one morning I noticed all the papers were "in use" so I wandered off to the other coffee shop and indulged.

On my way home that evening I passed the Behive and one of the owners commented that he saw me come in and leave. I replied that "the papers were all being read so I didn't bother staying". A polite goodnight and not much more thought on the matter.

About a month later the same situation arose (no papers available) but to my amazement as I was about to wander off I heard a voice say "Take a seat sir, we'll get you a paper". This guy not only remembered why one of his 2 time a week customers ... yes a $5 per week spender ... didn't buy from him BUT actually made me feel as though he wanted my custom.

Sunday I flew Brisbane to LA – a 14 hour flight with me only getting about 1-2 hours sleep. Not to be encouraged. I arrived in LA at 7am with almost 8 hours between flights. I was happy that David Riffle and Marilyn were coming to meet me at the airport so we could get breakfast on the Sunset Strip. It was funny going to a restaurant with Marilyn, David and Greg and feeling that Marilyn and I would be treated as Aussies – but then Marilyn does have a US accent so she was treated as a local again and I was the only foreigner. Pancakes as big as manholes were on the menu. Hmm, I am so glad that the waitress suggested Marilyn and I share a stack since we were both ordering plain stacks. HUGE. I have attached a picture of David’s.

Correction from ASI AP Update - Please note that Daylight Savings Time has ended in Western Australia (as of 30th March). This means that Perth is - just for this week - three hours behind Melb/Syd.

As of 6th April SA, VIC, NSW, ACT, Tas and New Zealand will end daylight savings time (clocks are put back one hour) thus bringing QLD back into the same zone to the rest of the eastern states and WA will be back to being two hours behind the east.

New Zealand will remain two hours ahead of Melb/Syd.

See blog entry http://www.insideasiap.com/node/578 for details on USA.

For those that need to meet with US staff, note that the US started daylight saving time this week. 9am Melbourne time is now 6pm VA time and 5pm TX time. Note that this will change again once we go off daylight saving time early in April. Useful world time zones website here: www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/.

The ASI 'SMART Company' Scholarship Fund March quarter closing date has been extended to Friday 14 March (from 10 March). Details are at www.advsol.com/ap/scholarship.

The scholarship is open to staff working at NFPs - ASI customers and non customers. iMIS and Open Alms customers (up to date with SUP) can apply for up to $2000 in funds for their professional development under Part C of the fund.

We encourage applications for the March round! Contact Marla on 03 9869 7503 for more information.