Keeping Your Email Out of Spam Folders in 2024

Keeping Your Email Out of Spam Folders in 2024

Setting Up and Testing SPF and DKIM Authentication for Automated Email Systems For years … decades, actually … hackers have been able to “spoof” email addresses and send out spam as if it came from other peoples’ email accounts. Internet service providers have finally settled on authentication standards to ensure that emails actually originate from […]

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Recommended Workaround: Google Chrome 108 Breaks Some WordPress Donation Pages

Recommended Workaround: Google Chrome 108 Breaks Some WordPress Donation Pages

​UPDATE: As of 12/8/2022 Click and Pledge has patched its WordPress plugin to avoid the problem. Visitors using Chrome 108 on Click and Pledge donation pages will see the picklists, which look slightly different – they’re truncated, and visitors will have to scroll to the desired value. But they work. Google is also rolling out […]

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What Did COVID Teach Your Volunteer Programs?

What Did COVID Teach Your Volunteer Programs?

COVID served as a sort of stress test for many volunteer programs. Could they survive without in-person activities? Could you adapt them to the new circumstances?   Most important – Were there changes you made that you’re adopting permanently? At WaterGrass we convened a discussion on the topic.  (WaterGrass is an organizational database that among other […]

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Volunteering at Scale

Baird Straughan, 7 Feb 2022 We started WaterGrass to help organizations manage growing volunteer programs with limited staff, and the Milwaukee Riverkeeper has achieved that in spades.  Along the way, they illustrate some basic principles of large-scale volunteer programs, and illuminate a new challenge for us. In our webinar How One Organizer Led 218 Events […]

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Know Your Database Culture

Installment #1 of the Nine Database Best Practices. Carl Paulsen, WaterGrass   Databases provide us with the tools to make our jobs with nonprofits easier.  Or at least that’s what they SHOULD do.  The trouble is, a database is like any other tool; it works best when in the hands of a skilled craftsman.  In […]

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Finding Your Database Maven

Finding Your Database Maven

Baird and Carl with thanks to the many mavens we have learned from.  At WaterGrass, we’ve watched a lot of organizations grow.  The successful ones maintain consistency in their database and get really good at using the data to generate donations and engagement from their supporters. They can do that because their data is entered […]

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Are Online Volunteer Waivers Legally Valid?

Are Online Volunteer Waivers Legally Valid?

Baird Straughan, April 2021 Online waivers speed up event registration, reduce paperwork, and liberate organizers so they can concentrate on the event itself and the people attending.  Nevertheless, some of our client organizations worry that if an accident occurred, courts wouldn’t respect a waiver that’s not on paper.  What’s the truth? Short answer: At present, […]

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Good Enough Data Security for Small Organizations in the Age of Mega-Hacks

Good Enough Data Security for Small Organizations in the Age of Mega-Hacks

Baird Straughan, March 2021 At WaterGrass we aspire NOT to work in data security.  Our client organizations are relatively small, unlikely to attract persistent hackers.  For financial transactions, we use the secure connections of much bigger players – Salesforce, Click and Pledge, iATS.  We advise clients to keep credit card numbers and other sensitive information […]

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