Run your non-profit as a business, not a hobby

Recently, our very own team member, Divya published an article on LinkedIn about the struggles non-profits know all too well, when it comes to growth. At ClubRunner, working with non-profit groups, we've seen this firsthand ourselves.

An excerpt from the article:

Despite the wide range of what non-profits do, they all have a striking similarity in their struggle to grow and prosper. The root cause is the misguided mindset that they are "non-profit" rather than "for-profit". These labels only apply to the financials, but should not affect the way they operate or present themselves. I've seen first hand evidence of even the smallest groups achieve big goals simply by changing their toolkit!

The biggest obstacles preventing non-profits from growing and reaching their goals are neither budget nor a lack of manpower; rather it is their mindset and way of thinking. I found that the executives were unable to look past limitations and road blocks. Moreover, many of them simply saw themselves as volunteers and part-timers and believed that success was merely a matter of more time and resources. As a result, they were resigned to achieving small incremental changes. While this is understandable, I started thinking if we could make more of an impact by adopting strategic business elements. The more I thought about it, the more I was convinced that we simply needed to embrace the mantra, ‘think like a business’. Non-profits play an integral role in community service projects but it isn’t just a matter of organizing a few fundraisers.

Read the rest of the article here and share your thoughts with us! We'd love to hear your opinion!

Tips of the Week!

Did you know that you can add custom fields to your club reports?

Clubs can now include custom fields that they've created for member profiles in reports they build with the eDirectory builder! An additional source type called 'Custom Fields' has been added to the "Column Designer" screen. Upon navigating to the Column Designer, from where you can add more data sources to appear in your report, you can select, custom fields as a choice and then select which field you want added to the report.

Did you know you can now format custom page titles to customize their style, look and feel?

To give you more control over formatting, we've made it simpler to format Custom Page titles. Similar to the option available for Stories, you will now see a "Format Options" link next to the title field. Clicking on it will open a new editor window from where you will be able to easily bold, italicize, underline, change the font, colour and size of your title.

These are just some of the new features we've recently added! Have suggestions you'd like to share with us? Send them to us at feedback@clubrunner.ca

Tips of the Week!

New Rotary Theme Bulletin Now Available!

We're proud to release an official Rotary branded bulletin theme, which coincides with the look and feel of the Rotary website theme! This new theme mirrors the look and feel of the new Rotary brand, including colours and fonts. Clubs and Districts can implement this new look for their bulletins and can easily adopt the new brand and share a cohesive look with Rotary.org.

Did you know you can customize the titles of your Custom Pages?

That is correct! To give you more control over formatting, we've made it simpler to format Custom Page titles. Similar to the option available for Stories, you will now see a 'Format Options' link next to the title field. Clicking on it will open a new editor window from where you will be able to easily bold, italicize, underline, change the font, colour and size of your title.

Enhanced Committee module users, did you know you can now schedule your emails to go out at a later date from within the module?

We've added an email scheduling option within the Email Center in the Enhanced Committees module! Similar to how you can schedule your emails to be sent at a later date and time from the Email Message Center, members of the committee can schedule their emails to go out at any time they prefer.

For more information on the Enhanced Committees module, please click here.

Top 10 ClubRunner Themes!

With the launch of Version 3.0, we introduced many new website themes to choose from to make your website reflect your clubs' unique style. Over the past few months, we've added even more new and modern designs for you to choose from including our latest Rotary theme, and there are still lots more on the way!

We've had lots of requests to share the top 10 ClubRunner themes in use - so here they are! In no particular order, the following are the most popular themes used by clubs and districts!

Elegant Theme	Cube Theme
International Theme	Ribbon Theme
Antique Theme	Shiny Theme
Gradient Theme	Retro Theme
Curvy Clouds Theme	Simple Gradient Theme

To view other website themes, simply navigate to the Themes tab in the Website Designer. Do you have a unique that you use for your club website? A design that you created that you would like to add to our Theme Library? Email us to learn more about how you can contribute to our theme library!

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Want your website to match Rotary's new look? Take a look at our new Rotary theme, which was designed to mirror the look and feel of the new Rotary brand and match the new digital guidelines found in the recently released Rotary Quick Start Guide. To learn more about the new digital guidelines and view the Quick Start Guide, click here. To view our official announcement, click here!

New Rotary-Based Website & Bulletin Template!

Last week, Rotary International announced the release of their new Quick Start Guide for Club Websites, which is a guide advising clubs of how they can organize their websites with the new digital guidelines in mind that clubs can refer to when designing their websites,.

We're pleased to announce the release of our new Rotary themed website and bulletin template that was made in conjunction with the release of the Quick Start Guide! As an Official Rotary International Licensee, we were involved with the Public Relations and Identity team at Rotary to build a new website theme that mirrors the look and feel of the new Rotary brand; including default content and site map, as well as incorporating shared images in the ClubRunner image library. As a result of these efforts, clubs using ClubRunner can more easily adopt the new brand and share a cohesive look with Rotary.org.

How to switch to the new theme:

Clubs using Version 3.0 can find the new theme by navigating to the Website Designer and then clicking on themes. The new Rotary theme will be the very first option there for you to select. Simply select the theme and view the changes in the preview pane. Once satisfied with the look of your website, click on publish to have your changes go live.

Once you've switched over, be sure to share the link of your website with us! To view the bulletin theme, navigate to the Bulletin Designer 3.0 and click on the Themes button.

To view our official announcement regarding this, click here.

To learn more about Rotary's new digital guidelines and view the Quick Start Guide for Club Websites, click here.

Tips for the Week!

Did you know that the Birthdays and Anniversaries widget can also display birthday information for spouses?

As part of our latest software update, we've added the option to display birthday information for spouses as well. Great for adding to your bulletin! This option can be selected by clicking on the cog wheel on the widget to go to the settings page, from where you can simply check the "Show Spouse Birthdays" option.

Did you know that you have the ability to mark a subpage as the default landing page when website visitors click on the Site Page link?

A Site Page allows you to create a number of subpages and related pages as well as allow you to add photo albums, links and files to the pages. Subpages contain important information related to the topic that a Site Page was created for.

As you add more subpages or delete them, you can quickly and easily change your default landing page. To make a subpage the default, click on the subpage from the menu on the left side. When you are in the Edit Site Page screen, you will notice a link on the top titled "Make as Default Subpage", which you can click on to proceed.

Did you know that you can select which photo albums you want displayed on your Photo Albums List page? 

A popular request, you now can choose which specific albums you want to display on the Photo Albums List page, which is accessible from your menu navigation bar. The Photo Albums list page is the built-in page that you can easily add to your menu bar. To add albums to the list page, simply navigate to the Edit Photo Albums link from your Admin page and select the Photo Albums List page filter. From here, click on the "Add Photo Album from Library" button and select whichever albums you want displayed!

Tip of the Week!

Did you know that you now can display your sponsor ads on more pages of your website?

A very popular feature, the Sponsorship module allows clubs to place sponsor ads on their own website as a means of generating revenue for the club. These ads can be text or image ads and clubs can set their own prices and schedule to run these ads. Up until today, clubs had the ability to display their sponsor ads on the home page, all subsequent website pages and the bulletin. As our way of providing you with more custom options, you now have even more control over where to display these ads and can choose from a variety of subsequent secondary pages including the photo album list, speakers list, speakers details page, event details page and more. To view the complete list and choose which pages to display the ads on, simply click on the Sponsor Settings from the Sponsors page.

It's easy to get started! Simply set your price and upload your ads! Even view how well your ads are performing by referring to the built-in hit counter which displays the number of clicks each ad has received.

Click here to refer to our help article on how to upload your sponsor ads.

We're constantly making changes to ClubRunner based on the feedback we receive from you and there's still a lot on the way! If you have a suggestion or feature request you'd like to share with us, email us at feedback@clubrunner.ca.

Tips for the Week!

Clubs using ClubRunner 3.0, did you know that you can now change the color, font, font size as well as add style elements to your story titles?

To give users more control over formatting, we've made it simpler to format story titles. Whereas earlier, any customization required the editor of the story to use HTML tags to apply style elements to the title, you will now see a 'Format Options' link next to the title field. Clicking on it will open a new editor window from where you will be able to easily bold, italicize, underline, change the font, color and size of your title.

Did you know you can add mail merge tags to your emails to populate the emails you send from MyEventRunner?

That's right! You are now able to further customize your emails and add mail merge tags specific to the recipient, sender and account when emailing registrants from MyEventRunner. You can choose from several mail merge tags including recipient name, recipient spouse name, club name, sender name, account name, and more.

These are just some of the updates we've introduced but there is still a lot on the way! We're constantly making changes to the ClubRunner service. Please continue to share your feedback and feature requests by emailing us at feedback@clubrunner.ca.

Tip of the Week!

Did you know that you can create custom forms using Google Docs for your website?

Apart from the built-in contact forms, there are definitely times your club needs to collect certain information and using a form would be the best method. Customers using Version 3.0 can create and add custom forms to their website with a just few easy steps!

Simply create your form in Google and once completed, copy and paste the source code in a custom widget in ClubRunner. All the responses are saved in your Google account and can be downloaded to Excel at any time. For instructions, please refer to our help article.

Version 3.0 offers a lot of customization options so you can design your website to meet the unique needs of your club. Has your club switched to Version 3.0 yet?

Tips for the Week!

Did you know that you can choose to hide the club motto from appearing on the Club Information Widget?

Clubs on Version 3 can customize their welcome widget even further and now choose whether to hide or display their motto. By default, the setting is set to always display the club motto. To hide it, click on the cog wheel on the widget to go to the properties screen. Under the 'Content Properties' section, you will see a checkbox next to "Show Club Motto". Simply uncheck it to hide it from appearing on the home page.

Did you know that you can customize the padding properties for all standard widgets in Version 3.0?

Due to popular demand, we've added the option to be able to customize the padding properties for all widgets. Top, bottom, left and right padding properties can be defined independently from the Properties screen of each widget, meaning you can control the spacing around each widget, without having to alter any code! Please note, this option is only available for all standard widgets and does not apply to custom widgets.

These are just a few of the changes we've made but there's still a lot more on the way! Have a suggestion you'd like to share with us? Email us at feedback@clubrunner.ca!