We are getting close to launching Clover Donations. As promised, here’s our first video showing the working version of everything. It should give you a good idea of the key features it will offer. Enjoy!

Sorry for the lack of communication over these past few months, especially regarding our new product, Clover Donations. To say our heads have been down working long hours on this newest Clover venture would be a bit of an understatement. The entire team has been pushing as hard as we can to complete this project, and we’re super pleased with how it’s taking shape (and we think you will be too).

Before we give you a decent update, a bit of a confession… When we originally estimated our time frame for this new product, we not only underestimated the sheer amount of time we were going to need to pull it off, but we also underestimated how meticulous we’d be with each aspect of the project.

When we started development on Clover Donations in August of 2011, our plan was to quickly launch a solution to the online giving dilemma that a lot of our people were running into. We were planning on launching a product that would be comparable to the likes of PayPal or anyone else out there. That was realistically going to take right around 5 months for our team to pull off, so our original estimate of December made a ton of sense.

But as we got into the project, we realized that if we were to release a “comparable” product, we would be undercutting what our people really needed… Which is a total online giving solution, fully-editable and customizable by anyone in your organization, along with a system for donor management and reporting that doesn’t require a PhD in finance to use.

We were faced with the reality of either 1) putting out a solution that is like everyone else’s sooner, or 2) taking more time to release a product that will truly be the best, most complete product for our users.

And of course, we couldn’t possibly choose option 1. That’s just not Clover. We’d rather create a few truly great products during our lifetime than pump out twice as many mediocre ones.

You all have been so patient with us over the past few months. I know it might sound a little trite, but this extra time we’re putting into the product prior to its release is going to be absolutely, 100% worth it. We’ve put a ton of time into the form editor (on our 3rd complete revision, which we’re convinced now is perfect for you), making sure your forms are responsive (optimized for every single platform they’re viewed on – iPhone, iPad, Droid, Desktop, etc), and the total experience from your side as well as your donors’ side is as easy, intuitive and as beautiful as it can be.

We will be posting a video next week sometime giving you a true first-look at our product. We think you will be blown away.

And for those of you who have already seen Clover Donations at Exponential or Catalyst West or Dallas, hopefully you can vouch for the power of our new product!

Either way, thanks for your patience and excitement. Clover people are the best people. We’ll post again next week with the video.

Can’t wait to see you all at Exponential.

Excited to say that this April, for the first time, we’ll be sponsors at the Exponential Conference in Orlando, FL! We’ve heard such great things about Exponential. We’re super excited to be a part of it!

Once again, we’d love to help out with some tickets, so we’ll be doing another giveaway! We have one free ticket, and 20 discounted tickets ($99 dollars). If you’re up for it, put your name in and see if you’ll be one of the lucky winners.

We will pick one winner for the free ticket, and then 20 more for the $99 dollar tickets. Here’s how you qualify:

1. Must be willing to take care of your own travel to Orlando, FL. This contest is not limited to locals, but you’ve gotta get yourself to Florida and handle your own food and lodging. We’re simply taking care of your tickets.

2. Must Re-Tweet the following phrase:

@cloversites is giving away tickets to #Exponential. Go here for more details: http://bit.ly/xy8xFE

Or, if not on Twitter comment “Hey Clover – I want to go to Exponential” on this post off our Facebook page.

Like last time, we’ll do a drawing and announce it on our blog (and Twitter and Facebook). We’ll announce it at 12PM Pacific on Friday (March 16th). We’ll be sure to contact the winners asap, and arrange getting your tickets to you!

Good luck!

We’ve got a great line up of events and our team would love to meet you, so come by our booth if you’ve got a minute! We’re excited to announce that this year you’ll see our Clover Donations booth at some of these conferences too. Hopefully it will be a great way to see some of what’s coming, and have one of us walk you through a simple way of offering online giving to your organization.

Don’t forget to keep your eye on speakingofclover.com if you’re interested in tickets to any of these events. We do have extra tickets for a few of them, and we’d love to have you be a part of the giveaway. (Next week we’ll have our drawing for Exponential tickets!).

Here is our conference schedule for 2012:

All Access: March 27-29 – Dallas, TX

NTC: April 3 – San Francisco, CA

Catalyst West: April 18-20 – Orange County, CA

Exponential: April 23-26 – Orlando, FL

Catalyst Dallas: May 9-11 – Dallas, TX

National Worship Leader Conference: July 16-19 - Leawood, KS

Echo: July 25-27 - Dallas, TX

Catalyst: Oct 3-5 - Atlanta, GA

National Worship Leader Conference CA: October 9-11 San Diego, CA

Well, here’s our newest update: We’re still working on it.

I know that’s not the update many of you were hoping for, but it’s the best we can do right now! A lot of you have been emailing, commenting and calling, looking for a release date, but the most we can say is “soon”.

One of the biggest hiccups we’ve had has been how to balance the sheer amount of features we are offering, while still providing an easy, intuitive, and non-overwhelming interface. For example, we were about 90% done with the first iteration of our Form Editor and we decided to start over because we felt pretty strongly that it was too confusing for a non-techy person.

With this new version, we’re creating a “Simple Mode” and “Advanced Mode”. It allows us to make the design process incredibly easy for an average user, while still providing tons of power and customization for those who want more flexibility.

The Form Editor is just one of the many pieces of the Donation Center we’re creating, but this change is an example of our design process. Although it means more development hours, for us it’s the difference between making a good product and a great product.

So all this to say that we are still working hard on Clover Donations… It hasn’t launched as soon as we hoped, but it is already a lot better than it would have been if we forced it out in December like we had originally planned.

Thanks so much for your patience and support as we continue to work on our new product. If you can hang in there, this thing is going to be the absolute best way for your organization to accept donations online. Seriously.

If you have any more direct questions about Clover Donations (or Clover websites, for that matter), shoot us an email.

Here are some screen shots of what we’ve been working on:

I had the chance a couple of months ago to go with Skip1 (a non-profit we love) to Lima, Peru to check out some of the work they are doing there. My intentions were to see if Clover might be able to come along side Skip1′s efforts in Peru, and help in whatever way we could. After getting there, the immediate needs of the little community in Lima we came to serve became strikingly evident… They needed a kitchen and dining room built in order to reopen the orphanage serving the at-risk kids in their area.

The short-story:

Just outside of Lima, Peru, there is a town called Chilca that because of its incredibly quick growth and lack of resources (like most surrounding mountain towns of Lima), has much more people than resources to support them. Because of this quick growth, foundational necessities for growth (i.e. food, water, jobs, and social institutions like orphanages) have become secondary to simply having a shelter. In the midst of this chaotic living situation, a christian organization named ACED has stepped in and really began to help take care of some of these vital elements in these fringe mountain towns. One of these projects began by ACED was an orphanage that was birthed out of a school in the town of Chilca. They built classrooms and meeting areas for the school, as well as housing for 32 at-risk children who needed a place to stay. Having the orphanage on the premises, they also needed some sort of way to feed all the children. A makeshift kitchen was built, but because it was not up to city code, the orphanage had to be shut down and the kids kicked out.

Skip1 has partnered with ACED to build this kitchen and dining room (per Lima city code) in order to reopen the orphanage and once again serve the at-risk kids in the town. But in order to do this (cheaply), it is going to take about $30,000 USD to build the structures, kitchen (with all the appliances needed), and to furnish the dining room appropriately.

(There’s a way better, more complete explanation on Skip1′s site. Check it out here).

Here’s where you come in:

We at Clover have decided to come alongside Skip1 to provide a matching grant to get this project completed. We will match any donation you make for this project through Skip1, up to $15,000 from now until the end of the year. This means that together we can raise the $30,000 needed to build this kitchen and dining room that will allow this orphanage to once again take in these at-risk kids and give them a safe, secure place to live.

We know that many of you are asked to give in lots of ways at this time of the year (or you are doing the asking!), but we wanted to take the risk and share a real, tangible way you can help change some kids’ lives. In the midst of this need, we totally trust that God will take care of these kids in one way or another… We just wanted to share the need with our family!

Here are some pics I snapped of the kids who will be helped by getting the orphanage up and running again… Hopefully it puts a face (or faces) to the cause!