STAUPELL ANALYTICS GROUP - ANALYTICS EXPERTS FOR NONPROFITS, IMPROVING FUNDRAISING
  • Home
  • About
    • Staupell Team
    • Testimonials
    • Partnerships >
      • Prospect Research Institute
      • Lityx
      • TouchPoints
      • Gravyty
  • Services
    • Fundraising Analytics
    • Prospect Development
    • Business Intelligence
    • Database Administration
    • Fundraising Optimization Solution
  • Training
    • Analytics Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence
    • Business Intelligence Visualization Reporting
    • Prospect Research and Management
    • Webinars
    • Classes >
      • Beginner Analytics Using R
      • Analytics Classes
      • Skill Builder Series
    • Workbooks
  • Blog
  • Events
    • Water Cooler Chats
    • Video Replays
  • Contact
  • Product

Driven by Data Blog

How to Create Word Clouds from Your Contact Reports Using Excel

3/7/2023

0 Comments

 
​In our February Water Cooler Chat, we were asked if it were possible to do a word cloud from contact reports using Excel because it’s a tool that is familiar and used often.
Although it is possible, the process is clunky. Since Excel wasn’t built to do word clouds, the process does require the use of a macro.
Typically when the Staupell team does word clouds, our tool of choice is Tableau.
If you’re adventurous and want to dive into using Excel for creating your Word Cloud, here are the steps. Watch this video for detailed instructions.

​Summary of Steps:

  • Upload your contact report into an Excel sheet.
  • Highlight the column containing your free text data.
  • Select Data, then Text to Columns.
    • Choose file type Delimited.
    • Choose Space as your delimiter.
  • Create an empty sheet.
  • Paste the contents of the individual columns from your first worksheet into Column A of your new worksheet. (Clunky process, but hang with us. Refer to video time stamp 1:09-4:51)
  • Sort Column A of all your words to get all the same words grouped together.
  • Remove common words that aren’t necessary to track. (i.e. remove works like “a,” “an,” “and,” “the,” etc. Refer to video time stamp 5:49)
  • Take the word list you’ve just created and make them into a pivot table.
    • Use the Word and the count of the word
  • Sort by largest count to smallest.
  • Select the words with the largest numbers (suggest the top 20%).
  • Download the macro found on Chandoo. (Refer to video time-stamp 10:00)
  • Enable editing.
  • Save As Macro-Enable Workbook.
  • Update columns with your data.
  • Select your contact report words, click Developer on your top menu, then select Macros.
  • Select CreateCloud macro and Run.
Use your word cloud in presentations and reports with your fundraising team.
0 Comments

Text Mining Is No Longer Intimidating

2/6/2023

0 Comments

 
Picture
​In the world of nonprofit data management, we work really hard to smart code all of our interactions with our audience so that we can successfully report on them. However, we work in a relationship industry and that often requires detailed explanation, which, translated to data speak, is free text. And there is our conundrum.

Processing free text is the domain of artificial intelligence, a discipline that we nonprofit data scientists are learning now. The new processing program, Python, even has a package called Beautiful Soup which parses websites, the text within them, and the HTML tags marking any variety of content. The R program also has a package called SentimentAnalysis which assigns a sentiment to different words by using the package’s dictionary, called a lexicon.
​
But we can do some of this analysis without an artificial intelligence program. Here are some steps to work your way into trying out text parsing, starting with the easy stuff and working toward the sophisticated stuff.
  1. **Bag-of-Words Model:** This theory involves splitting text into single words, assigning a predetermined value to each parsed word, and then counting them up. Your version of this could be a word cloud, which we at Staupell have done using Excel and Tableau. Assigning meaning to the words requires a separate lexicon, which you can then use to add value to your word cloud.
  2. Phrase parsing: Called NGRAMS in some programs, parsing text into 1-, then 2-, then 3-word phrases allows for finding those phrases which indicate the sentiment that you’re looking for. I use WEKA to process text this way, but IBM’s Text Analytics software also intuitively identifies phrases depending on the lexicon (dictionary) that you use. I have even used SQL to do the work. When I have worked with IBM’s product, I have set my lexicon for client satisfaction, but the product can create a custom lexicon, so that phrases like, “promoted to” can be marked with a “career” tag.
  3. Looking for specific triggers. This exercise can even be done in Excel using the “match” function. Words like, “sold”, “gave”, or your organization’s name along with a quote can be identified. If you are using Python or R, use regular expressions to find them. Then flag them.
There was a study that I heard about years ago (and I wish I could find it now) where a suicide hotline identified through data science the keywords that indicated that the caller really meant to cause self-harm. To me, that is the best use of text analytics. Your work, since you are in a nonprofit, is also for a noble cause.

​Try some of these tricks and see what you can glean from contact reports. And let us know what you find.
0 Comments

7 Tips to Make the Rest of Your Fundraising Year Easier

1/2/2023

0 Comments

 
Picture
Every moment of down time in fundraising is a gift.

We often try to make up for low budgets by spending more time. However, at some point, we have to reduce the time that we spend on tasks in order to meet the increasing demands of our jobs. Or, at best, we need breathing room because no being – human or machine – can run at full speed continually.
​
Here are 7 suggestions for using your January downtime (or any downtime you may find throughout the year) that you may have to reduce administrivia and free up time for better work.

​1. Clean off your desk.

​You lose time looking for things. Having a good filing system and putting away all your stuff makes it easy to retrieve what you need while you’re dashing off to that next meeting. I have a habit of cleaning off my desk as part of my New Year preparations (I know, I’m a geek).

​2. Organize your workspace to suit you.

I am left-handed, so most of the workspaces that I have been assigned to did not suit me. I moved my screen around and used the desk drawers differently from their design. It made me less irritable and more productive.
​
As an example, there are Shaker desks where the drawers are on the side of the desk, not on the front. They were made that way when one Shaker brother noticed his Shaker sister getting more and more cross while she was sewing because she banged her knee whenever she wanted to retrieve materials.

​3. Make cheat sheets.

​Though most documentation is electronic now, a printed cheat sheet in a protective sleeve saves you from having to Google what screen in SalesForce shows contact reports, for example.

​4. Build group lists in your email program.

​It’s annoying to lose 20 minutes to a “Why wasn’t I in on that email?” tirade. Build groups and forget about it. This preparation works especially well for me when I’m on a committee.

​5. Build macros.

​When you do repeated reports and you have to take several steps in Excel (or any other program), you lose time. Creating a macro in Excel, a routine in R, and a hotkey in Word all reduce typing time and errors.

​6. Figure out what new reports you need.

​If you regularly request the same custom report, ask your reporting team to add it to the standard report suite.

​7. Learn something new.

​Studying is best done in quiet offices. Ask me how I know!
I hope some of these ideas help bring new energy into your work. After all, everything you do is for a good cause – literally.
Feel free to write to me or comment below with some of your favorite shortcuts to make your fundraising year easier.
0 Comments

It’s a Thankful Time of Year

12/5/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
In our recent Water Cooler Chat, we talked about how to automate stewardship to some extent. We Staupellians are passionate about automation because it gives us time for creative work.
Traditionally, a variety of cultures and religions see this time of year as the time to reconnect with family and give gifts. Some countries also celebrate a Thanksgiving holiday, starting off a string of winter holidays that go through to January 6, which is traditionally Saint Distaff Day or the day that everyone returns to their spinning wheels (and distaffs).

Read More
0 Comments

Negotiating Scary Times

10/31/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
This month’s theme is “Scary Moments in Fundraising” (see our Water Cooler chat, here). I prefer to talk in optimistic terms, so writing a follow-up blog post rather puts me off. However, like it or not, we are living in scary times. Even if we are vaccinated, we are watching world leaders start wars and our national leaders pick snowball fights instead of governing. Watching these events leaves me feeling foolish that I continue talking about fundraising planning techniques. Is there a way forward, anyway?
​
I grew up in poverty. One of the lessons of poverty is this: If a resource appears, use it. The second is that anything can be a resource. I have used this scrapper skill set during my career, most recently during the 2009 economic crisis, where my team identified wealth still available and my organization shifted from major gift cultivation to making annual giving asks.

Here are some ideas: (you knew that I would pivot back to optimism, right?)

Read More
0 Comments
<<Previous

    Keep Informed
    Sign up for
    notifications when a
    new post comes out

    Sign Up Now


    Authors

    Marianne Pelletier has more than 30 years of experience in fundraising, with the majority in prospect research and prospecting.

    Greg Duke helps Raiser’s Edge clients to optimize their database by implementing data clean-up techniques and creating reporting structures, including dashboards and SQL queries.  He also facilitates data imports into Raiser’s Edge and database administration.

    Categories

    All
    Advancement Svcs
    Annual Giving
    Artificial Intelligence
    Assessment
    Big Data
    Blackbaud
    Branding
    Dashboards
    Databases
    Data Management
    Data Mining
    Data Prep
    Dependent Variables
    Donor Modeling
    Efficiency
    Engagement
    GDPR
    Giving Variables
    Linear Regression
    Machine Learning
    Major Gifts
    NFT
    Participation
    Productivity
    Project Planning
    Prospecting
    Prospect Research
    Push Technology
    Raiser's Edge
    RE NXT
    Reporting
    Research Pride
    RFM
    Statistics

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    March 2021
    September 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    July 2019
    May 2019
    March 2019
    December 2018
    September 2018
    May 2018
    March 2018
    September 2017
    June 2017
    March 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    September 2016
    June 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015

    View my profile on LinkedIn
Picture
© COPYRIGHT 2023 Staupell Analytics Group. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
  • Home
  • About
    • Staupell Team
    • Testimonials
    • Partnerships >
      • Prospect Research Institute
      • Lityx
      • TouchPoints
      • Gravyty
  • Services
    • Fundraising Analytics
    • Prospect Development
    • Business Intelligence
    • Database Administration
    • Fundraising Optimization Solution
  • Training
    • Analytics Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence
    • Business Intelligence Visualization Reporting
    • Prospect Research and Management
    • Webinars
    • Classes >
      • Beginner Analytics Using R
      • Analytics Classes
      • Skill Builder Series
    • Workbooks
  • Blog
  • Events
    • Water Cooler Chats
    • Video Replays
  • Contact
  • Product