All about CharityTracker

Howdy,

We’re going to be consolidating all of our blogs into one blog on the Simon Solutions website. There aren’t enough hours in the day for us to post to one blog, then go to another blog to post a blog to visit our other blog. Hehe, confusing eh?

We hope it will be easier to keep up with what’s going on with Simon Solutions, if all our information is in one place.

Cheers

On Friday night, a week ago, I received a phone call from Larry, who was pretty excited. He said, “Mike, guess what just happened? We were on the evening news!” He went on the say that the local NBC affiliate in Huntsville, AL aired a special report on CharityTracker.

Needless to say, I got very excited too. Larry told me to go to the TV station’s website and see the report online. I read the report, and even found they had video of the segment on the website.

Featured in the report were our good friends Tina Scott, Executive Director of the United Way of Northwest Alabama, and Ashley Butler, 211 Information and Referral Specialist. Both women shared how CharityTracker was fighting the problem of scammers.

“We have been able to identify a lot of people who were scamming the system, people going to different agencies to get the same bill paid.”

- Tina Scott

They also shared how the network was bringing people together and building relationships with other service providers.

“The best thing is the networking and relationships we now have with agencies and churches in Colbert and Lauderdale Counties, that we didn’t have before [CharityTracker] was made.”

- Ashley Butler

I had a chance to talk with Tina the other day. She said that calls are coming in from all across the country. People are hearing about CharityTracker and calling to see if it is “for real”. After hearing Tina’s story of the success of CharityTracker in our community, these callers are filled with hope.

My hope is that this simple tool, which is now becoming a community-builder, will find its way into communities all across America and help make a difference.

- Mike Simon

On this trip, my wife Lee Ann joined me. This worked out pretty good considering that Valentine’s Day is Thursday and we will be able to be together!

We decided to leave a little later than we originally planned, because of news reports of several accidents along the ice covered highway in the Louisville, KY area. It turned out that leaving late was a good decision, because as we made our way through Louisville (and north of there), there were at least 20 cars parked along the highway, but the roads were thawed.

As we got closer to Indianapolis the roads got worse because of sleet and freezing rain. The last 50 miles took almost two hours, but thankfully we arrived in one piece. After a long day on the road and a lot of white-knuckle driving, we finally got to the our hotel in Indianapolis. (On a side note, I had used Google map’s “street view” yesterday so I was able to recognize my way around. Pretty cool, huh?)

We were pleased to see that the good folks at the Great Rivers United Way Conference gave us a booth right next to the registration table and entrance to the meeting room! While we were setting up our display, I was approached by a man who was an Executive Director at an Indiana United Way. He said to me that he really liked what he saw, so I told him to check out the CharityTracker website and give the CharityTracker Demo a try. I hope I see him tomorrow so I can see what he thinks!

After setting up the display, Lee and I went to dinner and then back to our room where I responded to a few emails. I am very excited to meet some more United Way representatives tomorrow and share the story of CharityTracker and how it can help their community. I love my job.

-Larry

Today we’re spending a majority of the day tying up loose ends, getting ready for the Great Rivers Conference in Indianapolis, IN. The conference is a regional United Way meeting that will be attended by almost 400 Executive Directors and decision makers.

We’ll begin our travels tomorrow around 3 or 4am (yikes!). It’ll be about a seven hour drive for us.

Our game plan is to arrive in Indianapolis around 10 or 11am, setup our booth, eat some lunch then get some rest.

We’ll be gone all week, and I’ll be checking in to keep everyone updated. Keep us in your thoughts and we’ll stay in touch from the road!

- Larry

Larry LaBarge and Greg Hammond travel around the country going to conferences, where they tell people all about the exciting services we offer.

In the From the Road series, Larry will blog short posts to share his experiences of being on the road.

Last Wednesday, Greg and I went to Guntersville to present CharityTracker to the agencies and churches that serve Marshall County. The meeting was held in the meeting hall of the public library. I was happy to see Jeannie Lyle, the Executive Director of the United Way of Marshall County, who was at the United Way state meeting in Clanton last week. I was also glad to finally meet Betty Terrell, the 2-1-1/First Call for Help Director from Marshall County, with whom I have had numerous conversations about CharityTracker. Also present was Kasey Kearce, Executive Director of the United Way of Cullman County, I met her when Greg and I did a presentation in Morgan County last November.

When I first learned of the Marshall County organizations, I was surprised by how well-connected they were. They had already been working together and sharing information through another tracking system for well over 10 years! But their old tracking system was no longer meeting their needs, so we did a database transfer for them in December in preparation for a CharityTracker launch this month.

There were about 20 people there, representing numerous agencies and churches throughout Marshall County. There were folks from The American Red Cross, The Salvation Army, The Food Bank, United Methodist Church, Episcopalian Church, Baptist, Catholic Church, Church of Christ, and many others.

The presentation went well and there was quite a bit of interaction and questions being asked. There was a lot of head nodding and positive comments throughout the meeting. In fact, at the conclusion of the meeting, we were approached by quite a few agencies and churches wanting to know what the next step was to begin using CharityTracker right away.

We were also approached by Donna Manning, the Divisional Service Extension Field Representative for the State of Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi Division of the Salvation Army. Donna said that she had heard about CharityTracker and wanted to come and see it for herself. I was both pleasantly surprised and humbled to hear that she wanted brochures that she could take with her when she visits Salvation Army offices. She went on to say that she would like to see every Salvation Army office in her region get on board with CharityTracker.

I’m still blown away by how we’ve been welcomed in communities all over our area. The best part is that we know that CharityTracker is helping those communities, and helping people who are in real need.

Next week, we go to the Regional United Way Great Rivers Conference in Indianapolis, IN where we will get the opportunity to share CharityTracker with close to 300 United Way Executive Directors. Then it’s on up to Warsaw, IN for implementation and training for Combined Community Services of Warsaw, IN.

Please keep us in your thoughts as we continue to spread the word.

- Larry

Several days ago (on the same day as our Clanton meeting) Greg and I headed to the City-County Public Library in Montgomery. We did a presentation for about 15 agencies. They were invited by Jo Ann Johnson and Camilla Prince (Alabama VOAD Director) to learn about CharityTracker. The energy in the room was amazing; it seemed people really caught a glimpse of how CharityTracker could help their community. Of course, the truth of the matter is that CharityTracker is just a tool to be used in the hands of communities who have a passion to see people work together. There were many great questions at that meeting, the biggest one of all, once again, was about security. (Follow this link to a blog post that has a brief breakdown of our security in the fourth paragraph.)

After the meeting, we got to speak with many passionate people and hear their ideas. I talked with someone from the local Domestic Abuse Agency, someone from DHR, another person from a local food bank, as well as some folks from a couple of churches in the area. Everyone had one thing in common – they wanted to work together to serve their community. They weren’t held back by politics, territorialism, or differences in religion or philosophy. In my opinion, they had a true vision of servanthood and they genuinely wanted to work together to serve their community.

I am sure there are many others just like them scattered throughout the country looking for the same thing. We want to find them, and spread the word.

- Larry

A few days ago, Greg and I went to down Clanton to give a CharityTracker presentation. I was pretty pumped to go but, because of a head cold, I was feeling a little under the weather. Thankfully, Greg offered to drive so I could sleep (thanks Greg!).

The meeting we had was with United Way Directors from all over Alabama. I was glad to see many familiar faces I had met with over the last 4 or 5 months, and I was glad to finally meet the folks I had only had phone conversations with. Of the 28 Directors who were at the meeting, I knew about 10 of them.

Simon Solutions was first on the agenda for the directors meeting. (Many thanks to the directors who invited us!). I gave the quick version of the CharityTracker presentation and opened the floor for questions.

There were some great questions about security. When most people hear about an internet database they are concerned about privacy and safety from cyber crime. It’s a question I’ve fielded many times, and it’s a valid concern. People seem to feel better when I explain that our hosting company is housed in one of the most secure sites in the United States– it is audited four times a year by a third party company. We are 100% HIPAA compliant, and our applications are checked by our hosting company for vulnerabilities. They contact us if they find any holes in our security. And everything in CharityTracker is encrypted using the same encryption used by banks. Everything is safe and sound.

After the meeting I was able to touch base with a few United Way Directors who made the decision to go with CharityTracker. Greg and I left the meeting feeling very energized by the response and the great comments we heard about CharityTracker.

- Larry

Two of our team members, Greg Hammond and Larry LaBarge, have been traveling around, spreading the word about CharityTracker. They always have good things to say about their meetings, and we’ve decided to post some of them here.

Larry and Greg not only get in cars and on planes to share CharityTracker, they also engage in interactive online meetings with communities.

We hope you’ll enjoy reading!

We are very excited to announce the launch of CharityTracker! We’ve worked long and hard to bring you what may be the easiest way to track charitable assistance in a community.

Several months ago, Tina Scott of the United Way, and Donna Fisher of Faith Church, came to Simon Solutions looking for a simple way to keep track of charitable assistance in northwest Alabama. We brainstormed together and came up with an initial solution. Called SEANtracker, it was a simple web application where a charitable agency could let other agencies know who (and how) they were helping. The community used it and found it helpful. We got plenty of great feedback, including many ways to make SEANtracker better.

From the very beginning of the project, everyone agreed that SEANtracker should be an ongoing collaboration. We wanted to work hand-in-hand to ensure that the web application would get better and better over time, that it could adjust to the needs and wants of the community. From the feedback we received from the community, we made an update to SEANtracker. We are receiving more great feedback, and the cycle continues.

Now we’re offering SEANtracker to other communities. The public version is called CharityTracker, and it’s a service developed by a community, for communities. You can take it for a test spin at CharityTracker.net. Let us know what you think!