Category Archives: Tutorials

Tutorials on using Kerika.

How to manage a Fundraising Pipeline for Nonprofits

Academic & Nonprofit, Kanban & Lean, Tutorials,

We had previously mentioned our Grant Pipeline for nonprofits; here’s a similar version that our nonprofit users can use to track their fundraising in general.

Screenshot showing Fundraising Profile template
Click to view this template

This simple template lets your nonprofit team track all the fundraising opportunities that are out there, and make sure they get attended to as they go through the process: Prospect → Contacted → Pitch Preparation → Await Response.

As the possible opportunities move through the process, for each opportunity you need to track at least this information:

  1. Name and contact details for donor.
  2. Organization (include specific department or program office if you are dealing with a foundation).
  3. Key motivations: what’s the donor’s known mission, and how does your nonprofit fit within that vision.
  4. Likelihood of donation: this is something that you update as the task moves through the process.
  5. Pitch process: smaller donors may have an information process, but larger donors are likely to have intermediaries like foundations or family offices that have a specific process they like to follow before they will commit to a donation. Make sure you follow their process!
  6. Expected Date: when you think the donor might make a decision.
  7. Fiscal Year: which fiscal year the grant will come in, for your nonprofit.

Check it out and let us know if we can improve it.

How to manage your YouTube video production

Kanban & Lean, Tutorials,

For folks that need to manage production of YouTube videos, we have a helpful template that will set up your Task Board in minutes:

Screenshot showing template for YouTube video production
Click to view this Template

The workflow itself is simple: To Do → Researching → Recording → Editing → Designing Graphics → Scheduled → Done.

We have included useful links and suggestions in the first column to help you if you are new to YouTube video production.  Here’s an example, on how to produce a video description:

Screenshot showing example resource card
YouTube Resources Example

Check it out and let us know if we can improve it.

How to create a Branding Framework, Netflix-style

Kanban & Lean, Tutorials,

For our marketing users we have created a new template: how to create a Branding Framework for your company or product, in the way that Netflix does.

Screenshot showing template for creating a Branding Framework
Click to view this template

To give credit where it’s due, this template has been adapted from The Three Tools Netflix Used to Build Its World-Class Brand | First Round Review, where Gibson Biddle talks about how this framework was used at Netflix for their branding strategy.

What do you need to achieve for branding? Well, Gibson believes it requires answering three questions about your company:

  1. What is it? Be descriptive.
  2. What are the customer benefits? How does it improve customers’ lives?
  3. What is its personality? If your product, company or service was human and you met at a cocktail party, how would you describe him/her?
When using this template to answer these three questions, make sure you:
  1. Bring in as many people from across the company when you do your positioning, to get as many perspective as possible.
  2. Be succinct and clear, to the point where a middle-school student could understand what you are saying.
  3. Limit yourself to three words.
  4. Avoid fuzzy words.
  5. Create a personality for your company.
  6. Own a specific word in your company’s mind.
The first three steps, identified as tasks in the Getting Started column on this template, are:
  1. Understanding what is a brand.

    A brand is the unique story that consumers recall when they think of you.

  2. Understanding what is a branding pyramid

    Screenshot showing the Branding Pyramid

  3. Understanding the concept summary

    The concept summary takes all of the thinking from your positioning model, branding pyramid and internal discussions about what your company wants to be when it grows up — and reduces it to one paragraph.

The template walks you through the process, step-by-step:

Screenshot showing details of Branding Framework

The next time you need to do a branding exercise for your company or product, use this template. And let us know if we need to improve it.

How to manage a Grant Pipeline for Nonprofits

Academic & Nonprofit, Kanban & Lean, Tutorials,

A large number of our users are from small nonprofits (and they get free use of Kerika under our Academic & Nonprofit Plan!) and to help these folks manage their grant pipeline better we have create a new template that’s available to everyone:

Screenshot showing Grant Pipeline template
Click to view this template

This simple, yet very flexible, template lets your nonprofit team track all the grant opportunities that are out there, and make sure they get attended to as they go through the process: Prospect → Qualified Lead → Prepare Grant Application → Await Response.

As the possible grants move through the process, for each opportunity you need to track at least this information:

  1. Name and contact details for donor.
  2. Organization (include specific department or program office if you are dealing with a foundation).
  3. Key motivations: what’s the donor’s known mission, and how does your nonprofit fit within that vision.
  4. Likelihood of donation: this is something that you update as the task moves through the process.
  5. Pitch process: smaller donors may have an information process, but larger donors are likely to have intermediaries like foundations or family offices that have a specific process they like to follow before they will commit to a donation. Make sure you follow their process!
  6. Expected Date: when you think the donor might make a decision.
  7. Fiscal Year: which fiscal year the grant will come in, for your nonprofit.

Not all of this will be available in the Prospect stage, but it needs to be gathered in the Qualified Lead stage for sure: otherwise, your lead isn’t really qualified, and you are not going to be in a good position to win that grant.

Creating this, and other templates for nonprofits, are all part of our “social good” mission.

Check it out and let us know if we can improve it.

How to organize a Campaign Photoshoot

Kanban & Lean, Tutorials

We have a new template for folks that need to organize a marketing campaign photoshoot, or any other professional business photoshoot:

Screenshot showing the Campaign Photoshoot template
Click to view the template

The template contains a step-by-step guide, with each task laid out as a separate card on a Task Board. Here’s an example of a task:

Screenshot showing an example task from this template
Example Task

As you can see, this template contains not just a list of tasks, but also useful links for folks who are doing this for the first time.

Cards also contain a checklist of subtasks, where appropriate:

Screenshot showing the checklist of subtasks
Example Checklist

Check this out, and let us know if it needs improving!

Virtual Teams: How to Make Them Succeed

Kanban & Lean, Kerika, Team Collaboration, Tutorials, , , ,

At this year’s Lean Transformation Conference in Tacoma, Washington, Arun Kumar spoke on the subject of “Virtual Teams: How to Make Them Succeed”.

A synopsis of the presentation:

Virtual teams can be as successful, even more so, than traditional (collocated) teams – but you need to understand how the project dynamics change when everyone can’t be in the same room at the same time. In this session we will cover the key success factors to building a high-performing virtual teams: how you can plan your work, run your daily standups, communicate, and share content. We will discuss the different roles and expectations of Project Leaders, Team Members and Visitors, and how people can juggle multiple projects at the same time.

The presentation was an hour-long, including Q&A; here’s an edited version of the talk (about 45 minutes long.)

https://youtu.be/J4Pc7Xs7rlQ
Arun Kumar, on how to Make Virtual Teams Succeed