This is not a product exam and there is nothing to memorise. Every question is a sentence you might actually hear from a client, and the only thing being checked is whether you can tell which of them is worth a question: and which question. If you can do that, the rest of the program works.
Why bother
What certification actually unlocks
Ordered by what agencies tell us they want, which is not the same order a referral-fee schedule would suggest.
Work routed the other way
Nonprofits come to us needing an implementation partner. Certified agencies are who we send them to. The referral fee was never the reason to do this: the services engagement is, and this is the version where it arrives without you sourcing it.
Directory listing and badge
Named in our partner directory with the certified mark, which is a credential your prospective nonprofit clients can check while they are evaluating you.
Priority support and solution-engineer time
Your client's donation form breaking is your reputation, not ours. Certified agencies get a faster path and a named engineer for scoping and migration questions.
Co-marketing, sandbox, roadmap
Joint case studies and webinars, a demo environment you can show clients in, early sight of the roadmap, and a higher referral tier, listed last because it is worth the least.
The check
Ten scenarios, three shown here
Every item follows the same shape: a client says something, and you decide whether it is a signal, which question opens it, or which ending of the introduction fits what you just asked about. Correct answers are marked here, in the live version they are revealed after you choose.
“We're redoing the website in the spring, the donation page is part of it.”
Tests · signal recognitionWhyThis is the highest-value moment on the card and it is not one of the three headline signals, a decision is already being made, and right now nobody has framed it as a giving-conversion decision. Waiting until it ships means asking them to redo work they just paid for.
“Our email list is up about a third this year but online giving is basically where it was.”
Tests · which question opens itWhyA is a product conversation you are not equipped to have and do not need. C is the right sentence in the wrong order: the introduction lands after they have felt the gap, not before. B is the only one that makes the gap theirs, and most nonprofits genuinely cannot answer it.
They can't answer the conversion question. There's a pause. What do you do?
Tests · the introductionWhyA is where most referrals die, the pause is the whole opportunity and it does not survive until Thursday. B turns you into a salesperson, which is the one thing this program never asks you to be. C offers an introduction, commits your client to nothing, and takes eleven seconds. It is the question-one ending, the middle of that sentence changes to match whichever question you asked.
Passing
What counts, and what happens if you don't
- How long
- About ten minutes. Ten scenarios, no preparation, no reading required beforehand.
- Pass mark
- Eight of ten, with at least one correct in each of the three categories: signal, question, introduction.
- If you don't pass
- You see which items you missed and why, and you can retake it immediately. There is no waiting period and no limit. The check is a teaching instrument, not a filter.
- Does it expire
- Annually, or when the signals change. If we rewrite the card, the check is rewritten with it and you are asked to retake it.
- Can you refer without it
- Yes, always. Registration is open to anyone at a signed agency.
- Who sees the result
- You and your partner manager. Not your agency principal, unless you want them to.