Trail Blazer, Non-Profit and Political Talk!

This time of year a lot of new campaigns get started and ask "what do I need to put on my contribution page for a disclaimer?"

While we are not lawyers, we suggest that you keep it simple. Somthing like:

Disclaimer:

• The Federal Election Commission requires that all of these statements are true for anyone contributing to the campaign.
  I am a US Citizen or Permanent Resident
  I am donating my own money
  I am not under contract to the Federal Government
  I am not making this contribution in the name of another person
  I am 18 years of age or older
  
  
• If there is an occupation/employer: Federal law requires political committees to use their best efforts to obtain and report the name, mailing address, occupation, and employer for each individual whose contributions aggregate in excess of $200 in an election cycle.
  
  
• Contributions to <> are not deductible as charitable donations for federal income tax purposes. Federal law limits contributions to $4,800 per person ($2,400 primary election, $2,400 general election). Contributions can be drawn individually or jointly from personal funds only. Joint contributions are attributed to each contributor equally. Corporate checks are prohibited. Cash contributions cannot be accepted. Contributions from foreign nationals are prohibited.

I thought I would share an email , my father sent to me, this joke really made me laugh.

You have to be old enough to remember Abbott and Costello, and too old to REALLY understand computers, to fully appreciate this.  
 
For those of us who sometimes get flustered by our computers, please read on...

If Bud Abbott and Lou Costello were alive today, their infamous sketch, 'Who's on First?' might have turned out something like this:

COSTELLO CALLS TO BUY A COMPUTER FROM ABBOTT  
               
ABBOTT: Super Duper computer store. Can I help you?

COSTELLO : Thanks. I'm setting up an office in my den and I'm thinking about buying a computer.

ABBOTT : Mac?

COSTELLO : No, the name's Lou .

ABBOTT : Your computer?

COSTELLO : I don't own a computer. I want to buy one.

ABBOTT : Mac?

COSTELLO: I told you, my name's Lou .

ABBOTT : What about Windows?

COSTELLO : Why? Will it get stuffy in here?

ABBOTT : Do you want a computer with Windows?

COSTELLO : I don't know. What will I see when I look at  the
windows?

ABBOTT : Wallpaper.

COSTELLO : Never mind the windows. I need a computer and software.

ABBOTT : Software for Windows?

COSTELLO : No. On the computer! I need something I can use to write proposals, track expenses and run my business. What do you have?

ABBOTT : Office.

COSTELLO: Yeah, for my office. Can you recommend anything?

ABBOTT : I just did.

COSTELLO : You just did what?

ABBOTT : Recommend something.

COSTELLO : You recommended something?

ABBOTT : Yes.

COSTELLO : For my office?

ABBOTT : Yes.

COSTELLO : OK, what did you recommend for my office?

ABBOTT : Office.

COSTELLO : Yes, for my office!

ABBOTT : I recommend Office with Windows.

COSTELLO : I already have an office with windows! OK, let's just say I'm sitting at my computer and I want to type a proposal.  What do I need?

ABBOTT :  Word.

COSTELLO : What word?

ABBOTT : Word in Office.

COSTELLO : The only word in office is office.

ABBOTT : The Word in Office for Windows.

COSTELLO : Which word in office for windows?

ABBOTT : The Word you get when you click the blue 'W'.

COSTELLO : I'm going to click your blue 'w' if you don't start with some straight answers. What about financial bookkeeping? You have anything I can track my money with?

ABBOTT: Money.

COSTELLO : That's right. What do you have?

ABBOTT : Money.

COSTELLO : I need money to track my money?

ABBOTT : It comes bundled with your computer.

COSTELLO : What's bundled with my computer?

ABBOTT : Money.

COSTELLO : Money comes with my computer?

ABBOTT : Yes. No extra charge.

COSTELLO : I get a bundle of money with my computer? How much?

ABBOTT : One copy.

COSTELLO : Isn't it illegal to copy money?  

ABBOTT : Microsoft gave us a license to copy Money.

COSTELLO : They can give you a license to copy money?

ABBOTT : Why not? THEY OWN IT!

(A few days later)

ABBOTT : Super Duper computer store. Can I help you?

COSTELLO : How do I turn my computer off?
 
ABBOTT : Click on 'START'.............

But with some preplanning and promotion you can increase your fundraising success.

So how does setting up an online donation collection help accomplish those goals?

Don’t forget you need to promote!

To learn more about setting up an online donation program, call Brian at 800-446-1375 or email him at bhanf@trailblz.com

As wiki tells me 'The holiday commemorates the Mexican army's unlikely defeat of French forces at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, under the leadership of Mexican General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguin.'

Here we celebrate some early victories and tomorrow Mark Panger's Birthday.  We have to congratulate Cynthia Lee-Sheng and Clyde Holloway for their recent wins.  Cynthia even defeated a sitting state senator (and a past client, perhaps they should have renewed their license with us) to win outright in the primary.  And Clyde Holloway’s challenger in the runoff dropped out (I’m sure it is because they found out Clyde had Trail Blazer on his side) a week after the primary.

And I almost forgot on Friday some or all of us might be out of the office for a viewing of the new Star Trek movie official meeting of the Trail Blazer team.

TTFN

Brian Hanf

We are beginning the process of upgrading our customer databases to the new multiple addresses per person capability.  This will also allow us to release the enhanced householding feature and query save feature.

What does this mean to you?

Sometime between now and May 15, we expect to complete the upgrade to your database.  You do not need to do anything to facilitate this.

IMPORTANT - for use to ensure data integrity while your database is in use, we will rename the old address fields to prevent access.  If you are in the database when this occurs, you will receive an error when attempting to open a search panel.  You should exit Trail Blazer.  Depending on the size of your database, the upgrade may require a few minutes up to couple of hours to complete.

After your database has been upgraded, your Trail Blazer look will change in a few ways.  This article details some of those changes:  http://www.trailblz.com/kb/?action=view&kb=91&cat=10.

This article provides information regarding address management:  http://www.trailblz.com/kb/?action=view&kb=94&cat=1

Thanks,

Trail Blazer Campaign Services, Inc

Check out the Trail Blazer Page on Facebook!!!

We need people to sign up as fans, so hop to it!

or paste www.facebook.com/pages/Trail-Blazer-Software/64872951180

Time keeps on flying by for us here at Trail Blazer.  We try to update this blog on a regular basis but that is not happening as often as we like.  It's because of the bears; ok that is just an excuse.  But the reason is - we are busy working overtime for you.  Building some new tools and making some current tools more powerful and easier to use.

I will give you a preview of one item getting a makeover, Search.

We are Building some cool new designs for the search panels, to add functions to your searches.  BTW where you enter search criteria, with a name like Name, Address, Profile, or Contribution, is what we call a search panel.

Changed the positioning and layout (hope you like it) so some buttons are getting moved around, so you might get a little vertigo at first.  We didn't do it to make you dizzy.

What am I talking about?  Some thing like the button I hope you click very often - the [Search] button.  The [Search] button is now on the left instead of the right.  We did this because many of our clients are getting bigger screens and the button was very far away from the search panels and we were adding more buttons so those clients with smaller screens were getting the button cut off the screen.  Presto Change-o and both problems solved with one move of the button.

Current View:

Notice the red circles, [Search] is on the left most position of the new view:

In addition we added a few icons to the search panels and moved some icons and functions to what is called a tool strip.  By default you see the icon for [Include] it looks like two extension cords getting plugged together (more about [Include] later) and the icon for [more tools].  The [more tools] icon kind of looks like the play symbol on your VCR (CD, DVD, DVR, TIVO, etc).

More Tools Button:

We will have a bunch of stuff (emails, blog entries, KB updates) coming out with additional details on everything that is in the [more tools] area.  Just to get you stated though.  We moved the panel level [And/Or] button from the right hand side to the [more tools] area, the [not] check box is button in the [move tools] area also.  See image below.

Above image shows the expanded view, when you click the [more tools].

The red circles from left to right:

1. [Include] button, new to most panels - was on Contribution as a check box.

2. [Reset] button, moved from the bottom left.

3. [Not] button was a check box on the middle left side.

4. [And] and [Or] buttons, were on the middle right hand side.

One of the coolest items that we added was a tool to show the active panels, it is not in the pictures I am providing because it was in early production as I began writing this.  When you click this new functions button all the panels get hidden except for the ones that have search stuff filled out.  So if you can not figure out why a search is not working you can limit the view to what you have and use that to double check your work.  So, once limited you can use that new [Include] (told you I would talk more about it) tool to turn off panels to see how that might affect your search results. It is pretty neat!!

I think that might be enough of a preview for one day.

Oh ok you got me to talk a little more.  The coolest stuff coming out very soon is: Dashboard, Address Normalization, Tasks (expansion of reminders), and View Specific Online Help.

Dashboard: add a note to your screen, keep a voter list in view, open RSS feeds, and more.

Address Normalization:  Instead of just home, mailing, work - you now will have ability to add multiple homes, works, assign them as mailing address and much more.

Task/Reminder:  Some people are using log notes and reminders now, we are enhancing that system to a 'heads up' style display so you can see your reminder items at all times.

View Specific Online Help:  Or as we call it V-SOP, yeah we don't really call it that, it's just the blue help button.  So if you have ever looked at a Trail Blazer screen and said what does this do, or what do I do with this - (Me neither, but some people do) we added a little [help] button.  It looks like a question mark in a blue circle that you can click and a help screen just for what you are looking at will appear (subject to us having built the help web page).

Ok with that said I will get back to actually making the changes, write to you later!!!