Care and Feeding of Your Database – Fundraising Solicitations
As I mentioned in an earlier post, the care and feeding of one's fundraising database is important. It helps to keep your NPO running like a well-oiled machine.
Just as important as keeping your contacts straight is keeping your funding solicitations well-organized. One way to do this is through the use of the "Proposal" system. Keeping track of the proposals or funding requests you send to people or organizations will help you to track where your time is spent, not to mention the "life cycle" of the proposal in question.
Again, consistency is key when it comes to keeping your proposals in order. If you know you will have a lot of proposals, develop some guidelines as to how these should be entered into the system. Should you indicate the calendar or fiscal year in the proposal's name? What kind of giving this proposal falls under?
An example of codes you might develop for the database:
FY10: Operating = A Fiscal Year 2010 proposal for operating support.
FY10C: Astronomy Building = A Fiscal Year 2010 Capital support proposal for the astronomy building.
Your "naming" system should be as simple as possible while still allowing other employees to see, at a glance, what the donor or potential donor's solicitation history looks like.
The rest of the proposal record should be filled in as appropriate. Make sure you have the "Sent" or "Asked" date filled out when you actually ask the donor for a gift. Add in the amount of the ask - did you solicit Jane R. for $500, or for $5,000? Do you expect to receive the amount you asked for, or a smaller gift?
Similar to the "relationship" post, here too I counsel anyone designing a database entry system to keep it as simple as possible. Drop down fields should have as many options as necessary to get the job done - without being overwhelming. Avoid redundancy as much as possible; an employee shouldn't have to edit three parts of a proposal when one will suffice. This is especially important if you want anyone to actually follow your guidelines!
Dialog Tags
Part of being an aspiring writer is receiving feedback, and a big part of getting feedback is giving it. I've belonged to several critique sites over the years, including but not limited to deviantART (which, while a good site, leaves much to be desired if your goal is useful feedback on lengthly prose), Critique Circle (which is a great site, but I started to have trouble keeping up with the queue), and Scribophile (which is useful, but unfortunately much of the useful bits for novel-writers require that you sign up for the premium membership).
However, the point of this post isn't to analyze the various websites out there, but rather to emphasize a piece of common advice I've found myself giving lately. It's about something that should be simple, but isn't: dialog tags.
Something that should really be as easy as she said gives a lot of people trouble, sometimes because they don't understand the nature of the dialog tag, and sometimes because they try too hard. There are a couple of common mistakes that, while technically grammatically correct, should be avoided by anyone who wants their work taken seriously.
While technically "wrylies" is a bit of screenwriting jargon referring to parentheticals in a script, it's the one that's stuck with me over the years. They're also called "Tom Swifties," but I prefer the screenwriting term. An example is:
MAGIC IN THE BLOOD, Devon Monk — Review
MAGIC IN THE BLOOD is the second book of the Allie Beckstrom series by Devon Monk. I bought the paperback some time ago, but in honor of book three coming out November 3rd (next week!), I thought it would be a good idea to take the opportunity to re-read the series. I've already reviewed book one, MAGIC TO THE BONE.
The first thing I noticed when I got this book was how different Allie looks on the cover in comparison to MAGIC TO THE BONE. She's still clearly recognizable--same hair, same tattoos, even the same clothing style, but this Allie looks emaciated and a little fae. Her eyes are almost too big for her face, and she's clutching a bloody knife. I don't say any of this as a critique of the artist, Larry Rostant, but rather in many ways as a compliment. Allie is in a different place in her life in this book--and MAGIC TO THE BONE took a lot out of her, emotionally and physically. It makes sense that she'd look a little tired and lost.
I'm going to skip giving a summary of the book, since you can find one anywhere and it's not a brand new book, and just talk about the stuff I liked and didn't like about it.
In the last review, I mentioned how much I love the consequences that Allie has to go through, such as potentially losing her memory, massive bruising, etc. for using her magic. She has ways of coping--recording things that happen to her, directing backlashes so that she can prepare for the pain to come--but in MAGIC TO THE BONE, we never really saw her write much down in her book, so it's great to see that come back to bite her in MAGIC IN THE BLOOD, where she has no memory of her Happily Ever After, which also changes my perspective on how easy it seemed to attain; now, in book two, we see that there are still difficult things left for Allie to face.
Noir and Urban Fantasy
Awhile back, I joined a fiction community at livejournal.com called Prose Challenge. The community's "blurb" is
This is a community for those of you that enjoy creative writing. Every one - two weeks a new challenge will be posted. As an example, we might give you a title, an opening sentence, a picture, or something completely different. It is then up to you to write a story of up to 5000 words that links to the prompt we gave you. You do not have to enter every single challenge, it's up to you which ones you feel like doing.
and while I can't come up with something for every challenge, I usually try. It's a good community, and the prompts help keep me inspired to write, and I enjoy the practice of having to actually finish pieces every week; endings are much harder to practice than beginnings, after all.
I bring this up because this week's (week 33!) challenge is to write a film noir piece that takes place in an unusual location. While I often describe myself as an urban fantasy reader primarily, the truth is that my absolute favorite niche of the sci-fi/fantasy genre is what I like to call "noir fantasy." The Dresden Files (beginning with STORM FRONT) by Jim Butcher are a good example of this, as are Glen Cook's Garrett, P.I. books (beginning with SWEET SILVER BLUES), the Cal Leandros (NIGHTLIFE) books by Rob Thurman, The Vampire Files (BLOODLIST) by P.N. Elrod, and the Nightside (WELCOME TO THE NIGHTSIDE) books by Simon R. Green.
Care and Feeding of Your Database – People and Organizations
If you work in the fundraising department of any NPO, that department most likely has a database with which to keep track of its donors and prospects. Many NPOs use The Raiser's Edge, a Blackbaud product; others use eTapestry, Microsoft Access, and other, similar programs. The Chronicle of Philanthropy has a list of different companies and their software programs.
Databases like Raiser's Edge (RE) are extremely powerful, but they require "care and feeding". It isn't enough to create a record and drop your donor's information into the document with no regard to consistency. If you're starting up an NPO, you're lucky: you can design "best practices" now, and while you'll need to make sure your volunteers or employees stick to it, you'll be making a clean start.
If you're part of an established organization, your job is a little more difficult: not only do you need to develop best practices; you should change your pre-existing and active records to the new system, and you'll need to convince your fellow employees to follow the system. This post will cover tips for your database records involving people and organizations; funding requests will be another post!
Grilling, Sophisticated and Easy
As a general rule, I'm a terrible cook. Unlike Charity, it's not one of my talents. Although I'm capable of making decent-tasting food, usually I'm too bloody lazy to bother. Most times, if my food tastes good, I'm content. I don't insist on a lot of variety, either; 3lbs. of spaghetti or taco meat or catchatori will last me for a week and I'm content to eat it for three meals a day. I can't eat TV dinners, but I'm totally fine with pot pies, pre-made bbq ribs (they only take 10 minutes in the oven!), and other frozen foods that go into the oven.
Despite this, I love to grill. Most of my parties are outside, where my family has a big, elevated fireplace that we made out of cinderblocks and firebrick, a brick oven (made by us of the same material), a nice big cinderblock grill with two heights for the coal, and a smoker (which we didn't make, but it's still awesome). In my family, we take grilling seriously. Hotdogs and hamburgers are not allowed at my parties; I grew up on venison bites, made from deer shot by the next-door-neighbors who came to the pitfires my dad hosted (which were the center of the neighborhood). Nothing compares to the baked beans my mother makes on the grill, and the best apple pie I've ever had was made in the brick oven right beside it.
Now that I'm older, I host my own parties out on that patio. It's not the neighbors who come, but friends of mine (though neighbors are always welcome, we tend to stay out later than the retired folks who live where I grew up), and we don't cook my parents' food. We cook mine. There still aren't hotdogs, though, and I'm not the kind of person who cooks with a recipe; I cook by eye. On the grill, it's the only way to be sure.
I had never really cooked before I hosted my first party, but I had a friend who was vegetarian and I love(d) chicken, so we started from there and raided the garage cabinets for stuff to season with. Here's what we use:
Quick Meal: Peasant Chicken Pasta
It's 6:30. You've faced traffic or the subway to get home, and now it's time to make dinner for one. Resist the urge to order in, and cook up a quick meal, with leftovers that you can bring to work for lunch the next day, or freeze for a later dinner. This dish is healthy, flavorful, and can be cooked and on the table in twenty minutes. I call it "peasant" chicken pasta because it's good for emptying out the vegetable drawer and pasta boxes.
Ingredients
1 large chicken breast, cut into bite size pieces
1/3 lb short pasta, such as penne or farfalle
2 cups chopped vegetables of your choice - I like to use carrots, broccoli, red peppers and cauliflower or asparagus
4 large sundried tomato slices, julienned
1 shallot, chopped fine
2 cloves garlic, chopped fine
2-3 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup prepared pesto sauce, or 5-6 Tbsp homemade pesto
A few pinches of salt for the pasta water
Salt and pepper to taste
Grated Parmesan or Grana Padano (optional)
Instructions
Heat a large pot of generously salted water, and add the pasta when boiling. Heat a nonstick frying pan on medium, and sautee the chopped shallots and garlic, then add the chicken and sautee until almost cooked through. Add the vegetables and sundried tomatoes; cook until tender. When the pasta is al dente, drain, rinse, and add to the frying pan, then pour the pesto sauce or homemade pesto on top and mix thoroughly to combine and heat the sauce. If using homemade pesto, add a few tablespoons of chicken broth to keep everything moist. Add salt and pepper to taste, and top with grated cheese.
Vegetarian? Substitute very firm, well-drained tofu for the chicken, use vegetable broth, and a Parmesan with vegetable or microbial rennet.
Game Design Philosophy: Lockpicks?
Around the beginning of the year, I became involved with Lithmeria, first as a builder, then, eventually as the head of building and one of the lead developers (of which there are currently two; Selkrener is the head coder and top boss. We also have a small staff.). To give some background, Lithmeria is a MUD
In online gaming, a MUD (multi-user dungeon), pronounced /mʌd/, is a multi-user real-time virtual world described entirely in text. It combines elements of role-playing games, hack and slash, interactive fiction, and online chat. Players can read descriptions of rooms, objects, other players, non-player characters, and actions performed in the virtual world. Players interact with each other and the world by typing commands that resemble a natural language.
-- Wikipedia
with a high fantasy setting. There are two factions, which are engaged in an on-going, long-term conflict, that players will be able to be part of. Characters can be one of eight classes, two of which are based on the rogue archetype (one for each side of the conflict). As developers, Selkrener and I encourage discussion on the forums about what potential players want to see in the game. One of the threads on the forums is the Skill Ideas and Suggestions topic, and a discussion about locks and lockpicking came up. We were presented with simple question with complex underpinning: Should rogues be able to pick locks?
There are a couple of issues with implicit in the question:
Roasted Tomato Caprese – Review
In addition to my job and other hobbies, I very much enjoy cooking and baking. So, I may occasionally share or review a recipe. Some of these are good for quick dinners after a long day; others, like this one, require a little more effort. This recipe comes from Ina Garten, otherwise known as the Barefoot Contessa. I saw a small portion of her "Oven Rules" episode, which features this recipe, and later looked it up on the Food Network site.
While this take on tomato and mozzarella caprese salad does require a lot of time, most of it is "inactive" - the tomatoes are easy to prepare, but they do need to sit in the oven for quite some time. The full recipe can be found here: Roasted Tomato Caprese Salad.
I halved this recipe, as I was only cooking for three people and four plum tomatoes per person is a lot when it's just an appetizer. Usually I follow a recipe to the letter the first time I cook with it, and then make adjustments accordingly, however I did make one immediate adjustment: because I couldn't find six good looking, similarly sized plum tomatoes, I cut the larger tomatoes into thirds, lengthwise.
A sheet pan or jelly roll pan is definitely necessary for this recipe - or anything with high enough sides that the oil/vinegar and tomato juices won't leak off the pan and onto the oven floor. I found that roasting the tomatoes at 275 took less than two hours in my oven - I pulled them twenty minutes early. I let the tomatoes cool, sliced some mozzarella, and arranged everything on a plate. I shredded a few basil leaves and topped the dish, then served.
While this was delicious, there are some changes I would make for next time:
- I would use smaller, more equally sized tomatoes if possible.
- I would mix all of the ingredients used on the tomatoes, then pour that over the tomatoes for a more even covering.
- It may be a good idea to experiment with temperatures and cooking time, as the whole process did take just over two hours. This is delicious, but currently not a "weeknight dish".
MAGIC TO THE BONE, Devon Monk – Review
MAGIC TO THE BONE is the first book of the Allie Beckstrom series by Devon Monk. It is also Monk's debut novel, and has the rare distinction of having a cover that stays relatively true to the novel while still being visually alluring. The cover artist was Larry Rostant, and he did a great job. I bought the paperback some time ago, before the second book came out, but in honor of book three coming out November 3rd, I thought it would be a good idea to take the opportunity to re-read the series.
Allie Beckstrom is a Hound, able to trace a spell back to its caster, and while she may be one of the best there is at what she does, that doesn't make her home any less crummy or her bank account any less meager. This despite the fact that her father is a rich, powerful businessman, because she left that world long ago. But when she comes across a little boy dying from an illegal magic Offload, which is a way of avoiding the price of magic, she's drawn back into that world--because the Offload bears her father's magical signature. And then her father turns up dead, and she's the lead suspect, which complicates things quite a bit.
My favorite element of this series is the price of magic that Monk has chosen to have her characters pay. The first line of the back-cover blurb was Everything has a cost. And every act of magic extracts a price from its user... and that drew me in immediately. I come from the school of thought that insists that magic shouldn't be a get-out-of-jail-free card for a character; it doesn't exist to make things easy or just for the shiny coolness factor.
I remember when I first came across Holly Lisle's eleven Rules for Better Fantasy. I won't say they changed my life, but they certainly changed the way I read fiction. If a particular kind of magic is a way out of trouble for a character, or doesn't come with consequences, chances are I'm never even going to get past the book's back cover.