ARC Academy / Guides

Make the decision with the evidence visible.

Field guides for technology, reporting, and growth decisions where definitions, assumptions, and implementation details matter.

Field guides

Practical enough for the next working session.

Each guide gives your team a sequence to follow, not a generic list of trends.

01 / Technology

Compare operating fit and implementation readiness—not just feature counts.

Start with three workflows the organization must improve. Document volume, roles, systems, exceptions, and the decision each workflow supports.
Separate requirements into essential now, essential later, and optional. A long undifferentiated list makes every vendor look equivalent.
Ask vendors to demonstrate your workflow with fictional records. Score clarity, configuration effort, data ownership, reporting definitions, accessibility, and exception handling.
Evaluate total implementation: data cleanup, migration, integrations, training, process change, support, and internal ownership. Subscription price alone is not total cost.
Define a pilot and exit criteria before signing. Know what evidence permits rollout, revision, or cancellation.

02 / Reporting

Connect mission outcomes, capacity, financial context, and decisions in one concise narrative.

Lead with the period’s mission outcomes and state how each measure is defined.
Pair results with context: demand, capacity, staffing, seasonality, and material program changes.
Distinguish observed results from estimates, forecasts, and anecdotes.
Show three to five measures consistently over time rather than changing the scorecard each meeting.
End with decisions required from the board, the available options, and the consequence of delay.

03 / Fundraising

Find friction, form a testable hypothesis, and interpret the result carefully.

Test the full journey on phone and desktop from the most common traffic sources.
Record load failures, confusing language, required fields, payment options, errors, receipt behavior, and accessibility barriers.
Use analytics to locate abandonment, but pair numbers with direct observation or supporter feedback.
Change one meaningful variable and define the expected measure before launch.
Document sample size, period, external factors, and uncertainty before claiming impact.

Put learning into practice

The free ARC Assessment turns your current systems, priorities, and constraints into a recommended starting plan.