Nonprofit Technology - Community

What Social Media Strategy Looks like for Safe Place

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 15:12:01 PDT

Community and a Strategic Starting Point The goal was to look at Safe Place's community , internally and externally, and offer a strategic starting point for this nonprofit's social media plan . Despite that discomfort, I was motivated by just how compelling a discussion group can be in the face of greater community impact. It was a sunny SxSW Saturday last week where people came together for Zoetica Media 's brunch and brainstorm session -- with one nonprofit in mind: Safe Place . They are doing vital work in the Austin area.

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10NTC Science Fair Preview - Giveaways, More Giveaways and Free Apple iPads

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 10:06:25 PDT

create mobile applications or visualize community indicators? Tags: #10NTC Community NPTech NTEN science fai The program book has gone to print, the Miss Piggy costume has arrived, and the registration numbers keep rising. We're only 20 days away from the 2010 Nonprofit Technology Conference -- but who's counting? Just Just like in past years,

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Crowdsourcing and Community Building: The Big Buzz at SXSW

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:56:08 PDT

8221; Michaela Hackner, Forum One: Community is king - both online and offline. Our communities vet good ideas, apply the "trust" layer, and motivate us to take action. It is the groundswell of communities that provides the momentum and sustainability for social change. This week has SXSW was a total whirlwind filled with some of the biggest thought leaders discussing social media (of course) but also about the power of online fundraising and crowdsourcing. While many nonprofit campaigners didn't make SXSW this year, we at Care2's Frogloop and some of our guest

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NComputing - Shared Computing Simplified

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:43:55 PDT

Tags: Community Tech Centers Digital Divide Hardwar Here at TechSoup, we are often on the lookout for simple but effective technology that organizations can use to bring greater access to their constituents. NComputing is one of those companies that is heavily invested in that mission, and their technology has the potential to make an impact in bridging the digital divide in both developed and developing parts of the world.

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Constructive Disruption: Advancing Social Change Through the Cloud

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 08:52:37 PDT

But even greater potential for nonprofits to manage their operations more effectively, deliver a broader array of services and achieve greater impact for the communities they serve . But While we may not all be ready to start working in this paradigm today (and not all the technologies are ready either), we want to keep our heads up and begin taking practical steps to prepare, so we don't get left behind, and more importantly, so we don't allow our unpreparedness to mean we leave our communities or others in need behind. It Jane Meseck, Microsoft Corporation The

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Cloud Computing for Small Nonprofits: Lessons Learned from 5 Years in the Cloud

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 08:26:30 PDT

When he died in 1999, I connected with a community of colorectal cancer patients, caregivers, and family members online. Both are extensible platforms with strong nonprofit user communities. Judi Sohn, C3: Colorectal Cancer Coalition When When C3: Colorectal Cancer Coalition started in 2005, cloud computing wasn't the buzz word it is today.

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How Telecommunications Is Changing Work for Nonprofits

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 08:07:29 PDT

The company is based in Virginia with democratic and distributed workforce located in many communities around the United States. Jacob Griscom, BetterWorld Telecom [Ed. Ed. Note: This article was originally published in a slightly different form on TechSoup .] Thanks

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Community Matters, Even at SxSW

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 09:20:26 PDT

Reflections on community at SxSW But beyond all of the hype and noise, the most dominant theme I keep coming back to is that community is and always will be King. Even if you have the most awesome web site, campaign, or cause out there, you need a thoughtful and dedicated community behind it in order for it to be successful. Both online and offline, Andrew , Bill , and I just got back from the South by Southwest Interactive Festival , where we spent nearly a week drinking from the proverbial technology innovation firehose. We attended numerous panels, connected with

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The Participatory Museum Process Part 2: Participants' Experiences

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 08:20:00 PDT

Participants included museum professionals, academics, students, and a few folks from related fields ( community centers, arts management). Others noted that they were interested in being part of a community of practice around the project and getting to know and work with the other participants. Interest in me. One wiki editor wrote, "Nina, your active presence as the author / hub for the contributing community was tops. This is the second in a four-part series about writing The Participatory Museum . Check out the other parts here .

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Great reads from around the web on March 17th

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 07:43:14 PDT

10 Questions for Camfed — Camfed International – Jordan Ridge and Kristy Green will be traveling to northern Zambia this week to meet students, filmakers, and young entrepreneurs in the communities where Camfed works – and you can go with them! I come across so many great conversations, ideas, and resources all over the web every day. Here are some of the most interesting things I’ve found recently (as of March 17th).

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Congrats Mark Horvath & Invisible People TV for Pepsi SXSW Challenge Win

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 06:16:26 PDT

Community Builder: Mark never pitches his cause when he first meets you. And, sometimes cause marketing from brands can get in the way of building a passionate and committed community around a cause, particularly when heartfelt thank yous are edited out. Mark Horvath, known as " HardlyNormal " on Twitter and who is a tireless advocate for the cause of homelessness, was the winner of the SXSW Pepsi Refresh Challenge . Gary Vee , a social media celebrity champion and many others, helped this cause win the contest and receive a grant of $50,000 for Invisible People TV .

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Free Webinar on March 25: Is Salesforce CRM Right for Your Organization?

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 10:56:00 PDT

Nonprofits are utilizing Salesforce CRM to manage donors, activists, community members, contacts and more. Salesforce.com is a popular cloud computing customer relationship management (CRM) database that’s used by tens of thousands of companies around the globe. Through the Salesforce.com Foundation product donation program, qualified 501(c)(3) organizations are able to receive a donation of 10 Salesforce CRM licenses.

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A Few Reflections from SXSW Crowdsourcing Panel

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 10:50:30 PDT

communities work together for mutual good, and without competing. For the Case Study Contest, we used a submission form and then asked our networks and communities to participate by submitting examples of how they have integrated social media into program delivery. We also asked the community to vote and rate the examples. Crowdsourcing View more presentations from Beth Kanter . I I

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Guest Post: Next Generation of Donors Meet the Next Generation of Nonprofit Leadership at NTEN

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 09:45:14 PDT

Tags: Community convio Data E-mail NPTech NTEN Planning Social Media Web Sites Fundraisin Tad Druart, Convio Anecdotally Anecdotally and intuitively, you know that changing demographics and technology are driving a shift in your engagement with donors, volunteers, event participants and other people your organization relies on to fulfill your mission. That's one of the reasons you soak up all NTEN has to offer about technology and engagement.

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One of Many: Tenderloin Technology Lab Offers a Chance to Reboot

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 09:28:31 PDT

That's coming from Karl Robillard, manager of San Francisco's Tenderloin Technology Lab , in a discussion we had recently about the lab's role in the community . This post is part of a series highlighting TechSoup member organizations' achievements. "The The same way there's this whole food network around feeding people who are hungry, technology is now almost as basic a human right as food."

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Gov 2.0 and the Social Sector

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 03:33:00 PDT

Right at home: we had an energized mix of public officials, government technology policy staff, nonprofit policy advocates, community activists, software developers, and academic researchers and students. It makes sense that this data—in aggregated, depersonalized, privacy-protected form—be available back as well for communities to learn from, make their own assessments and evaluations of success and effectiveness. “Change” may not be coming to Washington as fast as we expected a year ago. Yet at the grass roots level, in the technology realm, something is definitely happening,

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Prizes to Promote Open Government

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 21:01:59 PDT

The memorandum also mentions that the government is building a new web platform for the management of challenges, as well as a community of practice for federal employees and contractors involved in these initiatives sector. Tags: Influence Collaboration Government Internet Strategy Online Community Social Medi We've written previously about the Obama Administration's Open Government Directive . Among other things, the Directive has led to a proliferation of innovative " ideas sites " across the federal agencies.

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Community in a Bowl

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 14:22:33 PDT

Perhaps you have been to one in your community – check here for a list of many empty bowls events across the country. What I love about this event (aside from the bowls of course) is the sense of community it creates around the organization. Reading about the community businesses and artists that come together to donate to the event. Author: Amber Wobschall I

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10 Ideas for Open Development

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 13:15:11 PDT

Build a community of developers interested in leveraging development data, similar to what Sunlight Labs has been able to do around open data for the US federal government. Conduct a high profile Apps for Development Challenge to mobilize the tech community to develop value-added tools and services to connect, aggregate, and visualize aid data. Engage this community on prioritizing next Thanks to everyone who participated in the Aid Information Challenge on Friday at the Word Bank. It was a great discussion that brought together a mix of people from different disciplines

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Midcourse Corrections » Blog Archive » Connecting: A Radical New Vision For Conferences And Events

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 12:28:00 PDT

Midcourse Corrections » Blog Archive » Connecting: A Radical New Vision For Conferences And Events: "I’ve been having some fuzzy thinking in the corners of my mind lately about conferences, community and connections. Those thoughts have come to center stage and gained a more compelling clear focus after weeks of reflection of conference attendance.I am struck by what I remember the most from m

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In Support of Idiosyncrasy

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 07:56:00 PDT

Other institutions are idiosyncratic in their relationship to their environment, like the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark, or to their community , like the Wing Luke Asian Museum. These institutions are often more connected to their specific, local communities than more generic institutions. They reflect the soul of the community and can be responsive to its unique interests and People often ask me which museums are my favorite. I

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Crowdsourcing: Community vs Crowd

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 09:14:43 PDT

You can see the full collection, and how they were voted on by the community here: [link] The Value-add of Crowdsourcing: For me, the two biggest reasons to include crowdsourcing in your strategic design of community building or contests are: Crowds are susceptible to encouragement/asks/campaigning – meaning, a group that enters and has LOTS of followers or active community members can send out an appeal for people to vote and get a big response; some say this is just playing I’m really excited and honored to be speaking today at the SXSW Interactive Festival in Austin, TX, on a panel with Beth Kanter, Dave Neff, Holly Ross and Kari Saratovsky.

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Make your cause more like Austin, Texas

Sat, 13 Mar 2010 16:51:12 PST

Austin Equation is trying to determine the ingredients that make Austin so extraordinary and the equation they have come up with is Experience + Community = Scene. How do can you promote the community aspect of your events? What sorts of activities help facilitate a sense of community ? Author: Joey Martin If you have visited Austin, Texas you may recall that we love to talk about Austin.

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Thrivability: A Collaborative Sketch

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:55:33 PST

Our contributors are from widely different fields – from social entrepreneurship to philanthropy, from deep tech space to community activism, from neuroscience to labor and economic history, from social network analysis to storytelling. How do you apply the idea of thrivability in practice – in your life, at your work, in your community ? How I’m so excited to announce the launch of Thrivability: A Collaborative Sketch – a new book curated by Jean Russell with a collection of over 60 essays crafting a topography for thriving. I have the great honor to

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Cause Marketing that Leads to Real Social Change by Zoetica Co-Founders

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:04:54 PST

that contribute to online communities fare in this important metric of change, Credit: Fence photo by Tim Tolle, from Flickr The following is a joint post by Kami Watson Huyse , Geoff Livingston and myself. Social Social media is in is toddler hood, especially as it applies to cause-based corporate giving campaigns and CSR initiatives.

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Why Use Widgets Anyhow?

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 18:03:00 PST

Network for Good was a forerunner in this space and has built several different styles of their Charity Badges including the celebrity based SixDegrees.org Other community or peer to peer fundraising sites like Changing the Present have incorporated sharable widgets as part of each personal fundraising campaign. Dapper has split into a paid advertising site and an open source community for data mapping widgets now at [link] Hopefully all the turbulence these services are experiencing will settle down. I'd like to thank new Idealware blogger Debra Askanase for the inspiration for this post, which actually take from her idea for a post around fundraising and advocacy widgets, and which she graciously let me run with due to my slight obsession with widgets.

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Update from CDI Mobile Telecentre and How You Can Help

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:40:17 PST

Today, the telecentre is in Lota , one of the poorest cities and Chile and one of the communities hit worst by the earthquake. Thanks to the rapid response from CDI Chile's team and the initial funding from the Canadian Embassy, 10 days after the earthquake, the community of Lota has been the first to receive access to communications using the mobile telecentre. Fundación CEPAS gladly received our team and the mobile telecentre, allocating a safe Earlier this week , we told you about TechSoup partner CDI Chile 's plan to restore connectivity to Chilean NGOs. The CDI Mobile Telecentre

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Nonprofit SXSW Goodness – Conference List Toppers, To-Dos and Topics of Interest

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 12:46:42 PST

You'll learn about Livestrong's community and Bike Hugger's blog, events like the Mobile Social, and the millions who follow Lance Armstrong on Twitter. Uprising Tide panel Saturday, March 13 at 03:30 PM - "Inciting Online Communities into Offline Movements - Ready to put your tech community on the map? Let them show you how to create an organic net-roots movement that upends traditional power structures and galvanizes Author: Jordan Viator It’s less than 24 hours until the masses start filling the Austin Convention Center for one of the biggest and best Interactive

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5 Questions: Bringing Community Organizing Into Online Campaigns

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 12:27:12 PST

We're asking them all to share their answers to five very important questions. Speaker: Debra Askanase, Community Organizing 2.0 Session: Bringing Community Organizing Into Online Campaigns one is talking about the relationship between community organizing and online organizing, and yet they are absolutely interrelated. Ed. Note: As we prepare for the 2010 Nonprofit Technology Conference , we wanted share a wee bit of the wisdom our speakers will be serving up, so as not to overwhelm you when you get to Atlanta.

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Which is a better investment for your nonprofit – an iPhone App or a mobile website?

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 09:20:16 PST

iPhones and AT&T are also expensive, so your user demographics will be narrow in comparison to the general web community . When I bought my first iPhone in June 2009 I was absolutely blown away. Love my iPhone. What a miraculous little tool of technology.

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5 Questions: Working with Open Source Software and Vendors

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 08:13:27 PST

The late 2009 release of the Open Government Directive is really exciting and I'd like to see an analog in the nonprofit community -- an Open Nonprofit Directive if you will, to encourage transparency, participation and collaboration. Ed. Note: As we prepare for the 2010 Nonprofit Technology Conference , we we

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SXSW Nonprofit Picks

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 07:47:19 PST

Frogloop has put together a short list of the best nonprofit and political campaign related panels as well as parties and gatherings for the nonprofit community. SXSW is just around the corner. For five days nonprofit campaigners, techies, and social media enthusiasts will gather for one of the largest and most anticipated conferences of the year. But with over 3K+ attendees and hundreds of panels, core

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Free Manuals for Refurbishing Computers

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:08:29 PST

We simply had to trial-and-error our way through it, much like the 600 or so nonprofit refurbishers in the Community MAR network . Twenty years ago, I was building computer training labs in homeless shelters with no hardware budget. I developed a small refurbishing operation with a bunch of homeless guys who were much better at fixing things than I.

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New on SSIR: Give Permission to Peer Influence

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 07:38:04 PST

It comes at the same time that I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the importance of community builders/managers/leaders or organizational voices to give permission back to the community members. The evaluation and recognition of peer influence, something that is not only prevalent but inherent in social media, is something that help empower and sustain your communities AND increase your staff capacity. My latest post is up on the Stanford Social Innovation Review blog. You can read the post and join the conversation on the SSIR blog here , or read the copied

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Congrats to Megha Bhagat, Winner of HP Laptop/Printer Bundle Theory of Change Contest

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 07:00:00 PST

How to get Communities like the litigating, practicing lawyers effectively Breaking the Myths about Social media: For a community like the lawyers It is important to make this community to realize and getting motivated by work that others in their community do. Congrats to Megha Bhagat , Winner of HP Laptop/Printer Bundle Contest that I ran on my blog last month. To enter the contest, readers had to share their " Theory of Change ." Megha is a passionate human rights advocate in India and also lawyer.

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How to Get Your Nonprofit into Local Newspapers

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 02:32:00 PST

With all the buzz about social media, it’s easy to forget that offline media attention can be equally valuable, especially for community -based nonprofits who want to get attention to local projects or recruit local members and volunteers. Offline media attention is good. Getting it can be hard, however, in the digital information age.

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Putting your people at the heart of your social media strategy

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 11:48:30 PST

This seems to me to be even more sensible as we are challenged to do more with less; charity leaders have a passionate community right under their noses: their own staff. This was the title of a talk I gave at the end of February and I think it is important, and frankly, worth repeating over and over. View on slideshare . It needs to be said that ‘digital’, and all the new stuff that we call ‘social media’, isn’t really the point; relationships are the point.

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5 Questions: Are You For Real? Working with a Virtual Team

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 11:09:52 PST

Openness and FOSS (free and open source software) are really perfect fits for nonprofits who share the values of collaboration, community , empowerment, and sharing. Ed. Note: As we prepare for the 2010 Nonprofit Technology Conference , we we

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Mobile Commons Helps Non-Profit Organizations Responding to the Chile Earthquake

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 11:01:20 PST

Catholic Relief Services is the international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States. AmeriCares, Catholic Relief Services and Habitat for Humanity adopt mobile for engaging supporters and fundraising NEW YORK – March 8, 2010 – In the aftermath of the 8.8-magnitude earthquake that struck off the coast of Chile, nonprofit organizations raced to mobilize aid and plan recovery efforts, while also raising resources and funds to support their humanitarian programs in Chile.

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What to Watch for at the 2010 SXSW - Nonprofit Edition

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 11:00:00 PST

Inciting Online Communities into Offline Movements - Saturday, through online communities and events. If you're like me, the arrival each March of the SXSW Interactive Festival is a huge huge deal. It's time to rekindle relationships with my extended technorati

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One Month Until NTEN's NTC 2010

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 08:25:00 PST

NTEN aspires to a world where all nonprofit organizations skillfully and confidently use technology to meet community needs and fulfill their missions. There will be sessions on a broad range of topics including Advocacy, Budget, Collaboration, Community , CMS, CRM, Change Management, Data, Email, Infrastructure, Integration/APIs, International, Mobile, Open Source, Planning, Social Media, and Websites. Another important part We're just one month away from NTEN's annual Nonprofit Technology Conference . The 2010 Nonprofit Technology Conference will take place on April

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Rapid Response at Critical Times of Need – An Essential Guide with Real World Examples

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 06:27:03 PST

Share them here so the nonprofit community can be better prepared the next time the need arise Author: Jordan Viator Rapid response is a top-of-mind topic for nonprofits of all shapes and sizes right now. Earlier this year Molly posted 7 quick tips to taking action quickly in times of need and numerous other resources and learnings have been put out since with the issue at top of mind for nonprofits and charities around the world (see: 5 Social Media Lessons

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Last 10 (selected) delicious.com links

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 16:10:53 PST

EC2StartersGuide – Community Ubuntu Documentation Amazon Web Services Developer Community : Amazon EC2 API Tools The reason I post these is because 1) I think they might be helpful resources, and 2) you can get a feeling for what I’m working on, or thinking about (or wishing for.) For instance, the reason there are so many links about Amazon is that we are now beginning a project that uses amazon in earnest, with some others possibly on the way.

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NTEN Member Buzz Round-Up: First week of March 2010

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 11:59:03 PST

Tags: community buzz NPTech NTEN nten member (Note: This is a weekly round-up of NTEN members doing and sharing their their nptech awesome. Members are in bold. Tag your own news with "nten member"

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5 Questions: Social Media's Potential for Faith Based Communities

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 08:44:02 PST

Session: Social Media's Potential for Faith Based Communities In the Jewish community , we’re starting to see “program director” positions start to take on “ community facilitator” characteristics. Faith based organizations -- both local and national -- tend to operate in their own silos, rather than to see themselves as part of the larger nonprofit community. Ed. Note: As we prepare for the 2010 Nonprofit Technology Conference , we

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Weaving Together Online/Offline Collaboration In A Network Context

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 21:37:43 PST

Yesterday was the second day for a meeting with a community of practice of people interested in network effectiveness convened by Monitor Institute . Yesterday was the second day for a meeting with a community of practice of people interested in network effectiveness convened by Monitor Institute. Collaborating Via Artifacts View more presentations from Eugene Kim .

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Layal Rabat Introduction to the Community

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:22:04 PST

Here is an interview that Megan Keane did with me a while back, cross-posted at: Member Spotlight Layal Rabat aka Ninlil Xeltentat . I also did a little video of my own to introduce myself to everyone here: read more ...Tags:

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Crank Your Drupal Site Up a Notch

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 10:53:05 PST

But apart from better queue management and multiple blog authors and side blocks and custom content types and extensible modules and themes and tags and built-to-order communities , what has Drupal ever done for us? (Bonus Pop quiz: What do Amnesty International , Monty Python , the White House , and NTEN have in common? Web Web sites powered by Drupal. (The

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Phishing Scam: Habitat for Humanity fundraising

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 09:20:40 PST

However, the actual work of HABITAT is carried out at the community level by affiliates that have been officially approved by the HFHI Board of Directors. I received the following phishing email today. It's a variation on the "your email inbox is too large" scam I posted in June. It plays Habitat's name, Haiti relief, and pure greed -- it claims you can earn big tax-free

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Fab Lab Sets Its Sights on Haiti

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 22:03:55 PST

I wrote a blog post a few months ago about Fab Lab, a network of community -operated workshops springing up all over the world. Tags: Community Tech Centers Digital Divide Running Your Organization Spotligh Also published on AshokaTech . I was excited about Fab-Fi , Fab Lab's name for the simple directional antennas they're

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CDI's Plan to Restore Communications to Chilean NGOs

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 16:34:29 PST

In addition to running TechSoup's programs in Chile , CDI also provides computers and training to children and adults throughout Chile, particularly in lower-income communities . In some ways, the impact of the recent earthquake in Chile wasn't as immediately obvious as that of the earthquake in Haiti . President Michelle Bachelet initially refused foreign aid, but as the death toll has grown, the need for an international response has become obvious .

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Book Announcement: The Participatory Museum is now available!

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 07:00:00 PST

I'm particularly hopeful that you might be able to help this book reach people slightly outside the museum field, like librarians, state park interpreters, and community arts organizers. Hey kid! Want to buy a book ? As many of you know, I've been working for the past year+ on a book about visitor participation in museums, libraries, science centers, and art galleries.

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Thinking About Networks and Social Media and Online Collaborations

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 22:08:41 PST

made me think of Nancy White, Etienne Wenger, and John Smith's work with online communities of practice . As Sanjeev was presenting, I wondered if the communities of practice orientation might work for a network? I Notes About Networks and Technology View more presentations from Beth Kanter . One of the most enjoyable activities as visiting scholar at the Packard Foundation is being able to participate in think tanks on a topic. Most of the ones that I have attended have been convened by Monitor Institute as part of their network practice .

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StoryCorps' IT Manager on Nonprofit Tech Planning and Open Source Solutions

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 13:12:19 PST

asked Dean for IT tips that I could pass on to small nonprofits, and since I knew Dean was an open source advocate, I asked him his thoughts on open-source solutions for the nonprofit community . Dean Haddock is a veteran IT manager at StoryCorps , a Brooklyn-based nonprofit that's also a TechSoup member organization. See our recent spotlight on StoryCorps to learn more and stream one of the organization's stories.

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Facebook Advertising Experiment for Nonprofit Organizations :: The Results

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 07:18:11 PST

If your community likes your Status Updates, and responds to them, they will show up in the News Feed > Top News. 1) Running an ad is a good tech experience for nonprofit community builders. 2) My ad may have been set up wrong or just didn’t resonate with the Facebook community , but that doesn’t mean yours won’t. $25-50 Over the last few weeks I have been running a Facebook Advertising experiment for the Nonprofit Organizations Facebook Page . While the ad itself produced little-to-no results, some unexpected Facebook insights did come out of running

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TechSoup Account Management 101: Benefits of Your User Profile

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 12:14:49 PST

As mentioned in the first post in this series about Registration , joining TechSoup as an individual gives you access to the TechSoup forums and other useful community resources, as well as letting you register organizations and request product donations. In this post I'd like to talk about maintaining the individual user profile and taking advantage of some of those community resources! This blog post is part of an occasional series focused on managing accounts at TechSoup.org. So far, we've discussed registration, qualification, and updating your account and forum profiles.

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Is Your Nonprofit Cultivating Women Donors?

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 17:21:59 PST

70% of women say that it’s important for companies to engage in corporate social responsibility and be active in their local community . Is your nonprofit reaching women and harnessing their power for social change? If your nonprofit is not actively marketing to women and recruiting them, your organization is missing out on major fundraising opportunities.

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Community Spotlight: Legacy International

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 00:32:17 PST

Our mission here at TechSoup is to understand the technology challenges of organizations we serve. One such nonprofit is Legacy International , an organization dedicated to strengthening civil society through international projects that bringing universal democratic values and team-building tools to address local, regional and global needs. Legacy International took four place in our Digital Storytelling Challenge with their video, " 30 Ways to Create Peace ", but their video production didn't

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5 Questions: Building Stronger Online Communities Without Losing Your Sanity

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:40:13 PST

Session: Building Stronger Online Communities Without Losing Your Sanity & Bringing Community Organizing Into Online Campaigns I'm speaking in two sessions, but I think they are both important for similar reasons: you don't have an organization, you don't have a campaign, you don't have a purpose if you don't have a community. Both of my sessions focus on best practices, lessons learned, and the things organizations Ed. Note: As we prepare for the 2010 Nonprofit Technology Conference , we

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Last Day to Take the 2010 Nonprofit Social Networking Survey

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:29:32 PST

nonprofit tech community knowledgebase. We'll be closing the 2nd annual annual Nonprofit Social Networking Survey after today. (You You can find the report from the first survey here .) If If you

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Guest Post by Katherine Hutt: A Small Nonprofit's Strategy for Pepsi Refresh Contest

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 23:32:29 PST

Another small nonprofit that has created a social media campaign specifically for the Pepsi challenge is EngAGE: The Art of Active Aging , which promotes successful aging for those living in affordable senior apartment communities in southern California. It’s really about having a great idea and being a good community organizer.” Photo: Jim Harrison Note from Beth: This post was written before the New York Times article describing a misstep with the Pepsi Charity Contest. Here's my analysis . Pepsi decided to give away their Super Bowl

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Where Are the Nonprofit Social Media Strategists?

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 18:28:45 PST

After reading a list of corporate social media strategists and community mangers compiled by Jeremiah Owyang , she wondered if there was a nonprofit list? I'd like to see a list of people who work as social media strategists as part of their job at a nonprofit or a community manager. This tweet from Patty Campbell caught my eye. Yes, there is!

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Is Your Nonprofit Reaching Diverse Activists and Donors

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 07:53:07 PST

Yet outreach and cultivation to diverse communities are typically done around election time, instead of as part of our regular campaign outreach work. Are nonprofits harnessing the social power of diverse communities who care about issues that nonprofits advocate? “At It goes without saying that how we go about organizing, communicating and fundraising and whom we engage in our work can have a dramatic impact on our The demographics of the US are changing. An estimated 40% of the US is comprised of people of color, according to 2008 US Census data.

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Enter the DoGooder Nonprofit Video Awards by March 19

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 14:09:42 PST

Starting today, submit any video your organization made last year by March 19, when a set of nonprofit and media professionals will select 16 finalists to compete in a public vote among the YouTube community . We’re excited to announce that we’ve partnered with YouTube to present the 4th Annual DoGooder Nonprofit Video Awards ! The contest will award a total of $10,000 in grants, funded by the Case Foundation , to the best videos of the year found in the YouTube Nonprofit Program —a special program that YouTube designed to help nonprofits achieve their missions. ?

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New Faces, Blog Changes

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 10:49:00 PST

Debra Askanase brings her background of 20 years of community organizing with a focus and expertise in how nonprofits use social media to the blog. Laura let everyone know last week that Idealware's web site is up for a major upgrade, coming soon. The Idealware blog won't be left behind -- we're happy to announce new bloggers and some other important changes that coincide with the Web Site update.

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Forum One Staff Share OpenGov Ideas

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 07:19:53 PST

The program would commence with a registration process which would provide students with access to an online community which would provide age-appropriate resources for the students. Young Adult International Development Community USAID should develop an online social networking community for young adults interested in international development. On January 21, 2009, the White House issued the Transparency and Open Government Memorandum. The memorandum instructed the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to provide guidance to executive departments and agencies on implementing

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Tips for Managing and Engaging Online Communities

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 06:44:49 PST

took over the world, people were part of smaller online participatory communities called listservs. Though not as sexy as Twitter, people are still active on listservs and they continue to be valuable tools for nonprofits and community groups to connect with people who are passionate about discussing issues, sharing resources, and engaging in thoughtful and sometimes heated debates. Yet even after all these years, many organizations still haven’t mastered how to use listservs Before Web 2.0 Remember them?

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First Screenshot of New Office for Mac Interface

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 14:08:03 PST

However, it was the very same Mac user community who expected a first-class ribbon implementation, who were at the same time crystal clear in their message: deliver a ribbon interface that’s built upon, not at the expensive of, the Mac user interface and native Mac OS X platform technologies. Here's a story Mac users might get a kick out of: while the rest of the world patiently awaits a definite release date for Office 2010 , there's been relatively little information from Microsoft about the suite's Mac sibling, Office 2011, aside from the announcement last August that Entourage will be replaced by a Mac version of Outlook .

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Thoughts on 3six5, a Successful Participatory Project

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 08:46:00 PST

Such a project would connect community members to the institution, promote the idea that history is being made everyday by regular people, and showcase local, contemporary stories. Yesterday, I had the delightful opportunity to participate in the 3six5 project , a yearlong participatory project in which 365 people write 365 journal entries for every day of 2010. The posts are short (365 words or less) and are intended to give a personal snapshot of that individual's day.

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Three Great Nonprofit Resource Opportunities

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 22:39:00 PST

Do you leverage your online community to raise funds? Selected organizations can offer this toolbar to community members, and each time someone clicks on the button, conduit donates to the organization. The catch: Do you have an active Ning, Facebook, MySpace, or private label community ? According Do you tell your nonprofit's stories online? Do you have a great group of enthusiastic online supporters?

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Cause Marketing: Selling Products Or Social Good?

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 14:26:15 PST

Many leading members of the cause marketing industry feel that consumers are beginning to demand corporations not only provide quality products but also become responsible members of the community . Everyone from Exxon to Wal-Mart have initiatives that engage non-profits and local communities . Since the days of Edward Bernays , marketing has attempted to convince consumers of their hidden desire to buy products. Have fifty years of manipulation run their course?

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Live Blog: Is Technology Really Good for Human Rights

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 12:53:56 PST

THe right to community is all about access. Tonight, I attended a live panel discussion on the question of whether Technology is Really Good for Human Rights, or not. Below are live notes – apologies for spelling and grammar – that follow the main points and audience q/a. Enjoy!

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Do You Have the Best Nonprofit Video of the Year?

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 08:41:05 PST

Expert Judges - See who will be selecting the top 16 videos that will be voted on by the YouTube community Flicker photo: mastermaq Every year at the NTC , we partner with See3 to bring you the DoGooder Nonprofit Video awards. You may remember " Children Need a Bailout " from 2009, or " Breathe In, Breathe Out ," from 2008.

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Social by Social In India

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 23:27:45 PST

engage a community , offer services, scale up activities and sustain projects. Social by Social is a practical guide to using new technologies to to create social impact. It makes accessible the tools you need to engage

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Crowdsourcing Social Change: A Contest To Solve A Complex Problem

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 23:10:56 PST

I've written a lot lately about contests ( Chase Community Giving and Pepsi Refresh ) here in the United States that are focused on "social media for social media." The core of the design is "popular vote" - the group whose idea gets the most people to vote for them wins. I've questioned whether or not this a good way to find the best solutions for complex social problems, although it can certainly add a halo effect and spread a brand's message.

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NTEN Member Buzz Round-Up: February 19th

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 08:22:30 PST

Tags: community buzz nten member (Note: This is a weekly round-up of NTEN members doing and sharing their their nptech awesome. Members are in bold. Tag your own news with "nten member"

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A Totally Baldacious Campaign

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 06:14:17 PST

These are just a few of the many ways to make the participating community more visible. Tags: campaigns case studies cancer community building movement building online campaign Don’t worry, I’m not trying to start an adjective revolution! Totally Baldacious is the latest campaign from The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and it’s turning heads!

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Top 5 from Stanford Social Innovation Review

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 01:28:19 PST

I’m so thrilled to share the news with you all that my blog post, Online Community Building: Gardening vs Landscaping , was the most popular blog post on the Stanford Social Innovation Review’s opinion blog in 2009. I’m so thrilled to be part of this community ! Check out the Top 5 SSIR Blog Posts! ...Tags: It is such an honor to me to contribute to the valuable collection of knowledge and insight at SSIR and to have a piece rank so highly is too good to be true! Thank you for all those who follow my contributions

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Reflections: Social Media and NGO/CSR Workshop in India

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 21:12:01 PST

First, I try to connect with people in the country or community via social media. communities (in both good and bad ways)." Whenever I teach workshops, I try to identify people in the community who have knowledge. Workshop Ngo Feb 13 View more presentations from Beth Kanter . My 8 day visit to India was a whirlwind.

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CountyHealthRankings.org Gives First County-by-County Snapshot of Health in Each State

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 15:10:36 PST

The site will help public health professionals, community leaders, policy makers, and consumers discover how healthy their county is compared to other counties and to uncover strategies to reduce disparities and improve community health. quot;This new site provides Americans the specific information they need -- no matter where they live -- to take control of their community's health." ALEXANDRIA, Va., Feb.

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Scholarship Campaign Wrap Up: Thank You!

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 10:37:09 PST

Once again, the amazing NTEN community rallied to support one another. Community Organizer 2.0 Ashli In the last two weeks, you raised over $7,000 for the 10NTC Scholarship Campaign ! Thanks to the generosity of Convio , we can add another $10,000 to that total, bringing us to $17,195. That's 48 scholarships we can offer to staff at small nonprofits.

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One, Two, Three Nonprofits, Ha Ha Ha

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 09:37:47 PST

All jokes aside, the census is coming up in just a couple of months, and believe it or not, it's pretty darn critical to our success in making change in our communities . The The folks at Nonprofits Count want to make sure that you're engaged in mobilizing your communities to participate in the census. Flicker photo: tifotter Maybe I'm just on a Muppets kick lately , but I can't help but think of the Count whenever I hear about the Nonprofits Count campaign. The data collected by the census affect the many funding sources we rely on to achieve our missions. Get

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Do You Care about Communicating with Each Other?

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 14:33:19 PST

To varying degrees, face to face, meetings, community spaces, get people involved because they lower the "care" threshold among people that might not normally care to communicate with each other. I was asking the twitterverse about the use of online tools (yammer) and adoption rates and Howard Rheingold flipped back this nugget. Latest: RT @hrheingold: "Success depends on ppl involved care about communicating w/ each other" great metric for network building too.

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A Recipe for Social Media Buzz

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 13:52:32 PST

course, like any good community event, we think the presentation was only half the value. If you want to build buzz in social networks, you have to build a community that will be engaged and dedicated enough to share your work with others. It's Flickr Photo: Steve Wampler Communications professionals and chefs have a lot in common. What often seems like magic is usually based on years of rigorous training and preparation.

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The Social Media Response to Disaster in Haiti

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 08:06:53 PST

This proved to the Ushahidi team that their tool would be valuable to communities around the world. Tags: Collaboration Community Mobile Newsletter NPTech NTEN Social Media Communication Amy Sample Ward, NetSquared When When disaster strikes, we want information as soon as possible and we want to help just as quickly. How can we do that?

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Tips for Writing Your First Social Media Policy

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 07:17:54 PST

Here are a few sources to get you going. Intel Social Media Guidelines Sun Guidelines on Public Discourse IBM Social Computing Guidelines Mayo Clinic Edelman Online Behavior Policies and Procedures Easter Seals Internet Public Discourse Policy NTEN Community Values Social Media Governance Policy Database 10 Must-Haves for Your Social Media Policy Opposites Attract: Corporate Social Media Guideli Check Maddie Grant & Lindy Dreyer, SocialFish, LLC and Leslie T. White, Croydon Consulting LLC Ready

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Youth Venture: New Inventors and New Ideas

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 21:52:58 PST

Many of the inventors' projects were based on needs that had arisen in their own lives, but even more importantly, it was clear that they were thinking holistically about the needs of their communities. As Charles pointed out in his introduction, part of what's exciting about these inventions is that they're indicative of a new generation eager to use their ideas to make big changes in their communities and world. This post originally appeared on the AshokaTECH Blog. Elliot Harmon, regular TechSoup blogger and staff writer, was chosen to " Blog [His] Way to Hyderabad " for the Ashoka

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A Daily Have Fun Do Good Practice: Move, Reflect, Play, Connect

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 16:27:00 PST

You can make connections in so many ways like: talking on the phone, sending a letter or email, spending time with someone, organizing a community gathering, volunteering, playing with your pet, being in nature, saying a prayer, and being a good listener. When I turned 40, six months ago, I wanted to do something special to celebrate, and honestly, to prepare. For the 40 days leading up to my birthday I created a 4-part daily practice of moving, reflecting, playing and connecting.

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5 Questions: How to Win Friends and Influence Luddites

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 13:56:02 PST

the tech track is to build a peer community that will help the sector Ed. Note: As we prepare for the 2010 Nonprofit Technology Conference , we we wanted share a wee bit of the wisdom our speakers will be serving up,

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Could You Split Your Membership?

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 12:26:00 PST

While value membership focuses on free admission and discounts, affinity membership focuses on building relationships and supporting a community of highly invested visitors. These membership programs are necessarily small, because they cater to the interests of particular segments of the larger visiting community. Signs like this one (spotted in the window at a large science center) drive me nuts. Why?

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NTEN Member Buzz Round-Up: Love Your Techie Week 2010

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 10:51:19 PST

the Community Platforms Toolbox, thanks to the recent discussion by several Tags: community buzz nten member (Note: This is a weekly round-up of NTEN members doing and sharing their their nptech awesome. Members are in bold.

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The She Spot: Best Practices in Marketing to Women Webinar

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 08:26:58 PST

Lisa is the co-founder of She-Source.org, and co-author of The She Spot: Why Women Are the Market for Changing the World – And How to Reach Them. Morra Aarons-Mele Morra is the founder of Women Online, and utilizes social media strategies to help employers, employees and communities connect with women. Did you know that: • women control two-thirds of all wealth in the U.S? • women make 80% of all household purchasing decisions? • women donate twice as many to charities as men do? If your nonprofit is not actively marketing to women and recruiting them, your organization is missing out on major fundraising opportunities.

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Supported Open Source

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 16:04:00 PST

just concluded eight years at a small, statewide health care reform nonprofit in Massachusetts called Community Partners. At Community Partners, we ran things on a shoestring . Though this community code base can be messy, open source development specialists know how to clean it up for you. I’m at an interesting intersection in my career path. I

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Recap: Social Media for Social Impact

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 12:52:35 PST

We had the privilege of having four panelists who each told a story demonstrating how the social web had empowered communities around social causes. Connie Chan from Yahoo! quot; campaign that encouraged random acts of kindness. Susan Tenby explained how TechSoup helped non-profits establish a presence in SecondLife , demonstrating how the virtual world can be used to disseminate information and also act as a venue for people to meet. Amy Skoczlas Cole from eBay explained how a grassroots employee effort for office-wide green initiatives grew

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Social Actions Communications: Benefiting from the attention of Mariel Garcia

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 12:30:00 PST

Just before the holidays, Peter Deitz posted an announcement that Social Actions was looking for a Community Engagement Intern. Mariel is a social media-savvy philosophy student with plenty of experience in online community building and social entrepreneurialism to boot. That might have seemed a strange thing to do, coming from an organization that enjoys not having an org chart. If you share Social Actions' mission and it makes sense to work together towards it, by all means let's just do that and we'll figure out titles and such later (if at all).

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HOW TO: Use Gmail and iGoogle To Create a Social Media Dashboard for Your Nonprofit

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 14:26:55 PST

There are thousands of useful Gadgets you can explore and utilize, but nonprofits can also easily create and custom design their own Gadgets and Themes to share with the iGoogle community. The launch of Google Buzz prompted me to better explore the suite of Google Products , and I have to say I was pretty astounded by what I found. Once I started clicking around and adding Gadgets and experimenting with Buzz, Reader, Themes, Maps, Gmail, Google News and hopefully soon Google Voice , it was immediately clear that I was going to start using iGoogle and Gmail much more often.

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Empowering Women Artisans: An Interview with Rebecca Kousky of Nest

Sat, 13 Feb 2010 09:21:00 PST

In countries like India there are predatory loan sharks that go into poor communities and offer these women, who are illiterate, loans that they can't read, and they charge really high interest rates. One of these predatory loan sharks came into their community. I'm sure it changes over time, but at the moment, what is the biggest challenge you face in reaching your mission? There "She stood up in our meeting and said that was exactly why women are afraid of taking loans in India, but with Nest, because it's interest-free and they can repay in their necklaces, they didn't have that kind of fear.

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The Nonprofit Technology Conference Scholarship Fund: Why I Donated

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 07:32:00 PST

I've been a proud member of the Nonprofit Technology community since, yikes, 1993 and a part of NTEN/NTC community since the early days. What's amazing about it is that the scholarship fund is something that the community supports. Every year, Holly Ross, the Executive Director, comes up with a creative idea to rally the community. This year's Nonprofit Technology Conference will be my 11th one. If you are involved with the nonprofit technology field, then you probably already know about the NTC the most attend event for nonprofit techies.

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How to Bring Facebook Fans to Your Nonprofit Blog: Part 3

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 10:55:00 PST

Your fans not only create the community around your nonprofit's Facebook Page, they define how they want to experience it and create much of the content. Tags: Non-profit technology nptech Marketing online community Blogging Social networking Facebook Non-profit Communications websites social medi Here are some ways to bring some of that interactivity to your nonprofit's blog or website. ...( read more ) ...Tags:

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Great reads from around the web on February 11th

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 06:30:56 PST

But what we have to understand is that this behavior doesn’t benefit our organizations nor the communities we seek to serve. I come across so many great conversations, ideas, and resources all over the web every day. Here are some of the most interesting things I’ve found recently (as of February 11th). You can join the conversations in the comments,

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Shine on, you crazy Beacon. Shine on.

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 10:09:14 PST

At SXSW 2009, with the help of our partners and colleagues, we planted The Beacon: Lounge with a Conscience at the Austin Convention Center, hoping to give nonprofit professionals and the socially conscious community a place of their own. To take our minds off the second blizzard in a week currently bearing down on us here in the DC area, let’s think about happier things. Like Austin Texas, & South by Southwest Interactive .

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Halfway Through the Scholarship Campaign, Halfway to the Fun!

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 08:33:01 PST

we look ahead to meeting our goal by next Wednesday (the 17th), let's take another moment and thank the 78 folks who have given so far! Catherine Algeri Avalon Consulting (extra props for the super sized donation!) H Baker Johanna Bates Katherine Bladow Rosemarie Boardman Rusty Burwell Jana Byington-Smith Peter Campbell Barbara Christensen Lauren Cochrane Andrew Cohen Rick Cohen

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Mumbai Tweetup: A High Energy Experience

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 08:06:37 PST

This was an hour of high energy unstructured sharing and community building at its best. Tonight I attended a tweet up at the NASSCOM India Leadership Conference with about 30-40 folks from business, social sector, and ngos. David Meerman Scott was the guest of honor. We had experienced Twitter users, including @ netra who famously tweeted for 60 hours straight during the 26/11 Mumbai Terrorist attacks.

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A Very Merry Unconference To You

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 07:39:01 PST

Free to the nonprofit and association community , UnTech10 will feature live and virtual presentations from Technology Conference speakers. It’s unfortunate that the official event had to be canceled, but we encourage all of you who are a part of the nonprofit and association community to check out UnTech10, and participate as you can. This post was originally supposed to be about the ASAE Technology Conference . We here at Beaconfire are big fans of the conference – attending, exhibiting, presenting – and we were once again looking forward to being a part of the expo and programming.

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Should CEOs and Executive Directors Use Social Media?

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 17:02:24 PST

CEOs Must Use Social Media from Community Organizer 2.0 The NASSCOM India Leadership Forum has multiple tracks based on theme. It also has a track that takes place in a large room with roundtables and a designated discussion topic and facilitator. These sessions are not for presentations, but for disscussion and sharing of ideas.

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NTEN Data Ecosystem Report Now Available

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 14:05:17 PST

2008, NTEN began asking the community to tell us what they thought of the tools they use. Today, we are very pleased to announce the release of the Data Ecosystem Report . Life Life would definitely be easier if there was one piece of software that could do everything we needed it to, from donor management to email blasts. Of course, life is rarely that simple.

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Calling all NPTech Knights to the RoundTable!

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 10:18:30 PST

we invite you to gather 'round with the NTEN Community at one of our upcoming RoundTables. Flickr Photo by Trainer62 You may have noticed there's a lot going on at the NTEN court as of late -- new nten.org (just look around), release of the NTEN Data Ecosystem Report , NTC Scholarship Campaign , the NTC , and a great line-up of webinars ! Along Along with the many ways to engage and learn, we still want to continue to give NTEN Members the opportunity to talk with their colleagues who might be struggling with the same issues they are. So

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How Different Types of Museums Approach Participation

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 09:09:00 PST

Finally, because of their social content, they are good places for community dialogue programming and comment boards (for example, consider the Levine Museum of the New South's extensive use of sticky notes and talking circles). Small museums are more likely to be community -oriented and to be comfortable incorporating visitor-generated content without feeling that it disrupts the overall design of the institution. Recently, I was giving a presentation about participatory techniques at an art museum, when a staff member raised her hand and asked, "Did you have to look really hard to find examples from art museums?

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An Experiment with Facebook Advertising for Nonprofit Organizations

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 08:43:13 PST

If you haven’t yet noticed, three very important changes have been made that significantly effect your organization’s Facebook community : They have built the largest online community the world has ever known over the last 5 years and now they are positioned to make some serious cash. The Facebook of February 2010 is quite different from the Facebook of 2009 especially when it comes to Facebook Fan Pages. 1) Status Updates are no longer guaranteed to get exposure in the News Feed.

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Technology for Change Contest: Win a new computer from HP!

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:48:54 PST

For example, simply review the hundreds of ideas listed in NetSquared ’s Project Gallery and you’ll quickly see that people from around the world are hard at work leveraging all kinds of technologies to create positive change for communities tackling many different issues. Technology for Change What’s your favorite example of technology helping people create positive change in the world?

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Why My Mom Is My Fundraising Guru

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:26:34 PST

Are we highlighting the contributions of our community , or only talking about ourselves? Our community is there for us when we're there for them. Flickr Photo: Mez Love You may have heard by now that we're raising money for scholarships to the 2010 Nonprofit Technology Conference .Last Last year was the first time we ran the campaign, and while we met our goal, it was a stretch, and we almost burnt ourselves out. The

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Introducing the New NTEN.org

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:12:31 PST

All of which goes to show we're nothing without our community . ...Tags: After what seems like months of work, we've finally implemented our web site redesign. (If If you've been following this space, you'll know it seems like months because it was: 8 of them since the start of our information architecture review. So, to those of you who've been waiting with bated breath, our apologies.

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Little Things Can Mean A Lot: Email Signatures

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 14:38:00 PST

link] -- Engage activists: Sign up to become part of Audubon's E-Activist community [link] -- Give a description of your organization and the official tag line: Visit our website: www.policylink.org PolicyLink is a national research and action institute advancing economic and social equity by Lifting Up What Works.® -- Reinforce your mission: Several nature and environmental organizations include the line - "Please consider the environment before printing this email" -- And while those funny quotes that used to be so common probably aren't a great idea for an official organization

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Five Online Fundraising Tips to Raise More Money

Sat, 06 Feb 2010 16:20:00 PST

Because every day you work on some of toughest issues facing the world or your community. Repeat after me. "I I will no longer send out fundraising appeals with boring subject lines and long-winded pitches." In today’s battle of the inboxes, tweets, Facebook updates, text messages, and banner ads flying across the screen, organizations can’t afford to ignore online fundraising 101 strategies to motivate and inspire supporters to donate money.

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PepsiFresh Contest: Real Tracking and Social Impact Analysis

Sat, 06 Feb 2010 11:01:35 PST

cause marketing, this engages passion from communities to improve other impact towards helping communities . What funded were successful, what impact did it have on the community? I've been following the PepsiFresh contest since the launch in December, the largest social media for social good cause marketing effort put forth to date. I recently posted a guest post by Bonin Bough from Pepsi that gives the insider view.

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NTEN Member Buzz Round-Up: February 5th

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 10:43:18 PST

NTEN Member Buzz Round-Up: February 5th

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 10:43:18 PST

The Overhead Question: What's Our Role?

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 14:27:06 PST

today we hosted a community community call -- recording and chat transcript here -- to tackle the need for change and what it might mean for our sector. Flickr Photo: tylerdurden1 Ask any nonprofit to describe how they feel about their overhead percentage, and you're most likely to be met with groans, sighs and rolls of eyes. None of us like the fact that the percentage of income we spend on "overhead" is the primary measure of our effectiveness. The

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The Overhead Question: What's Our Role?

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 14:27:06 PST

Quick Hit: Five Evaluation Reports on Participatory Projects

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 08:26:00 PST

This report, published in 2002, chronicles the history and impact of an extraordinary institution founded in 1990 to make museum collections available for use by community members for their own purposes. What's the best way to share information about your experiments--what worked and what didn't? Publish .

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Thanks to our Day One Scholarship Donors!

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 08:22:20 PST

As usual, the generosity of the NTEN community shines through! We opened our scholarship campaign yesterday to a fantastic show of support. We've only got until February 17 to meet our goal: raising $10,000 to send another 50 folks to the #10NTC ! Dozens of you contributed to get us out of the starting gate with over $2,000 raised.

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Thanks to our Day One Scholarship Donors!

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 08:22:20 PST

The Overhead Question: (More) opportunity to reflect on the future of nonprofit assessment and reporting

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 19:00:00 PST

encourage collaborations, community engagement, etc. Ask for info from the person/collab/org/ community that has it. * This evening, I needed to do some thinking out loud about the ideas I wanted to carry to tomorrow's teleconference, "The Overhead Question: The Future of Nonprofit Assessment and Reporting." (Catch Catch my first post with more info about the event and participants here ). A

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Why does NTEN like Bohemian Rhapsody? For you!

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 09:00:37 PST

Donations were matched by Convio and with over $10,000 raised by the community , we had fun at the largest-attended NTC yet! NTEN is hoping to raise $10,000 from the nonprofit technology community again this year, and Convio is going to match those dollars to help get as many folks to #10NTC in Atlanta this April 8-10. Last year, NTEN created a scholarship fund program to help support many more people attend the Nonprofit Technology Conference. There was even more value for the buck though: NTEN Executive Director put her pride on the line, saying that if the $10K mark was met,

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Interview: Colin Rhinesmith, CCTV Cambridge

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 07:34:48 PST

Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to connect with Colin Rhinesmith , Community Media Coordinator at Cambridge Community Television (Cambridge, MA, USA) and Adjunct Lecturer for the Media and Culture Program at Bentley University. Colin told me that they recently held a very popular social media workshop for seniors at Cambridge Community Television ( @cctvcambridge ) but that it is a topic that would benefit from more coverage – so, I asked if I could interview him! You can learn more about the workshop and the issues seniors face with social media in the interview below.

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Five Reasons Why Nonprofits Who Utilize Social Media Should Also Blog

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 07:19:51 PST

Through blogging, nonprofits can share their stories, break news, and share resources quickly, easily, and successfully to their communities on social networking sites. 4) To build community around your mission. Buzz words like “ Community ” and “Engagement” have become very popular over the last 12-18 months in reference to sites like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, but blogging and blogging platforms There are currently 133 million blogs worldwide. The world doesn’t need another blogger, right?

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Great reads from around the web on February 3rd

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 06:30:44 PST

There are different rules and new opportunities with online fundraising and every platform or application comes with a different community and varying functionality. 350.org: giving new meaning to “new organizing” | Working Wikily – This is a great case study about community organizing from the 350.org campaign. "A lightbulb went on in my head while I was listening to the PdF webinar last week that laid bare the machinery that made it possible for 350.org to achieve the most widespread day of political action in history back on October 24th. I come across so many great conversations, ideas, and resources all over the web every day.

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The 2010 NTC Scholarship Campaign: Your Chance to Embarrass the Entire NTEN Staff

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 05:26:09 PST

You, our amazing community , have put together a world-class agenda of sessions , affinity group meetings, ignite presentations, and more ! Of And, for every donation you make, you will get to nominate one community member to appear in the video with us. Ladies and gentlemen, I can proudly report that we are on a roll. The The 2010 Nonprofit Technology Conference is off to an terrific start.

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The 2010 NTC Scholarship Campaign: Your Chance to Embarrass the Entire NTEN Staff

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 05:26:09 PST

Care2's Community Impacts Global Change

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 18:11:50 PST

Communities like Facebook, Twitter, and Ning are great networks to help brand your nonprofit, engage with your supporters, and connect with potential new members. With cause-based communities like Care2 (the company who started the Frogloop blog) however, it’s easy for nonprofits to connect with over 12 million do-gooders who care to make a difference in this world. In 2009, the Care2 community created But there’s no question you need to invest time in finding those people who are passionate about your nonprofits issues. According to Care2’s Defining

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Help Idealist.org so it will be there for us in the future

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 05:01:28 PST

I hope that they will be able to continue to enrich our community which is why I am writing about Idealist.org today. In an appeal to the community late last week, the org's founder Ami Dar, wrote: Author: Corey Pudhorodsky I am willing to bet just about anyone that has worked in the nonprofit sector for a notable amount

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Pepsi Refresh Project: An Insider's View - Guest Post by Bonin Bough

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 07:28:46 PST

We’ve pledged to award more than $20 million to support innovative ideas that move communities forward. Our partners include GOOD , a leading platform for thought and action revolving around pushing the world forward; Global Giving , an online marketplace that connects people who have community and world-changing ideas with people who can support them; and Do Something , the largest non-profit teen charity. They will work to involve the nonprofit community and Note from Beth: I've been writing about online contests that use social media and crowdsourcing techniques.

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How Did You Decide to Help Haiti for the Rest of 2010?

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 08:26:00 PST

CARE is a humanitarian nonprofit that works in poor communities . Last week in my post, Keeping Your Balance While Helping Haiti , I suggested that you research organizations working in Haiti that you would like to support by donating, volunteering, or helping in some other way throughout 2010. We need to support the people of Haiti now, but also in the future, when the hard work of rebuilding begins.

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The Davos Blur

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 22:56:00 PST

James Moody of Australia’s national research organization was talking about an idea of a humanitarian license for patents that has been floated by the YGL community . My mentee, Musa, talked about his efforts to help communities in Iraq, including getting blind schools what they needed in terms of equipment (something I’m planning on helping him with), and ended with a rap. The Davos scene is nonstop: it starts with breakfast meetings at 8 am and ends typically after midnight. You rush from session to session, often jumping a shuttle from one hotel to another or back to the Congress

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Guest Post by Perli Ni: ow Social Media Can Help Nonprofit Arts Organizations Reconnect With Supporters

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 17:03:29 PST

In case you are not yet familiar with GreatNonprofits (GNP), it operates like a Tripadvisor or Yelp for the nonprofit sector, whereby people who have had an experience with a nonprofit can share that experience with a larger community . Perhaps equally valuable, from the perspective of the nonprofits that participate, this campaign will allow nonprofits to take advantage of free, social media tools to collect tangible evidence of their organization’s value in a way that engages their community of supporters going forward. Source: National Arts Index It's at times like these -- in the midst of an extended recession and the wake of the tragedy in Haiti -- that the role of funding arts in society may be called into question.

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The Dance Floor and The Balcony Social Media Training

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 16:12:45 PST

demonstrating the range of opinions in a community. OSI Workshop View more presentations from Beth Kanter . I I just finished doing a training for Open Society Institute media and information coordinators on social media with colleague, David Sasaki , from Global Voices. I've known since 2005 and I realized that the

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The other side of the figures: Causes reaches $20 Million in Donations

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 07:35:00 PST

There’s also been a bit of controversy around the Causes application specifically, due to it’s decision to abandon the MySpace platform and offer it’s application/services only to the Facebook community . (You Earlier this week, an announcement on the Causes Application blog broke the news that over $20 Million has been donated since May 2007 via donors using the social networking application. There’s been quite a lot of talk in the last year about the opportunities for fundraising online, generally, as well as the best practices for organizations leveraging social

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How to Bring Facebook Fans to Your Nonprofit Blog - Part 2

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 06:44:00 PST

Tags: Non-profit technology nptech Marketing online community Blogging Social networking Facebook Non-profit Communications websites social medi "How can our nonprofit move the active conversation from our Facebook fan Page to our organization’s own blog??" The nonprofit that asked this question might be a small one, but their challenge certainly isn’t!

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Great reads from around the web on January 29th

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 04:56:36 PST

Online Branded Communities : Misguided and Missing the Point – Marketing News Blog – This is an excellent review of best practices and case studies for online community management. Even though the authors (Kathy Baughman and Steve Hershberger) are focused on for-profit brands, the lessons ring true across sectors. "If you ask brand managers the purpose of online communities , the reply you’ll most often hear is “customer engagement.” I come across so many great conversations, ideas, and resources all over the web every day. Here are some

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PHILANTHROPY 2173: What kind of Apps would your foundation build?

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 18:36:00 PST

As my plane landed I sent out this Tweet 'What could a community foundation App do?Whoa. PHILANTHROPY 2173: What kind of Apps would your foundation build?: "As Whoa. The smarties of Twitter responded. A

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Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 Simplified for Nonprofits

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 06:39:07 PST

communities to launch your Web 3.0 tools to grow your communities on social networking sites and to send supporters and donors to mobile versions of your e-mail newsletter “Subscribe” and “Donate Now” pages. While there are a good number of tech-savvy hipsters out there that understand terms like “ Static Web ”, “ Dynamic Content ”, “ User-Generated ”, “ Cloud Computing ”, and “ Semantic Web ”, the majority of nonprofits don’t talk or understand such tech speak. So, to simply for the nonprofit masses, I present and frame very simple definitions and interpretations

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Finextra: Chase to extend crowdsourcing charity effort after two million facebook users vote online

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 05:13:00 PST

Finextra: Chase to extend crowdsourcing charity effort after two million facebook users vote online: "Chase to extend crowdsourcing charity effort after two million facebook users vote online Chase is to extend the use of social media for charitable giving after its first campaign on facebook attracted more than two million users to its Community Giving sit

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How To Make A Back Channel Light Up Like Clark Griswald's House

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 21:42:56 PST

On Tuesday, I had the opportunity to do a Webinar called " Social Media for Trainers: A Bag of Tricks " over at the Engage 365 Online Community site. But what's even better is that this wasn't an isolated training, it was part of an new online community called Engage365 which runs on a platform called " Conference 2.0 " This This online community , Engage365 , is a place to network and share knowledge I blogged about the content last week . I had sooo much fun creating and delivering it.

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Microsoft Windows Vista and Windows 7 Extra Request Extension

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 15:49:07 PST

Based on feedback from the community and overall popularity of the program, Microsoft has extended the date by which eligible organizations can make an extra donation request for Windows Vista and Windows 7 . Originally, they said organizations had until January 31, 2010 to request the extra donation, but now you've got until June 30, 2010 . read more ...Tags:

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Interview: John Brennan of OpenAction

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 09:01:19 PST

The community showed me a need for what I built, so I used this momentum as an opportunity to take what I built to the next level. Tapping into the (right) community is also an important lesson I learned this time around. Davy Crockett was, however, an expert story teller and community builder. I recently had the opportunity to connect with John Brennan , the driving force behind OpenAction.org , which empowers individuals and organizations by helping them tell the world about the positive impact their actions have. You can learn more about John and OpenAction in the

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Advancing Your Mission With GIS Tools

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 07:45:32 PST

A wealth of data sources are becoming available online, allowing data from around the world to be mingled, mixed, and mashed up -- and where data does not yet exist, communities are using these new tools to gather it themselves! Organizations Organizations around the globe are harnessing these tools and data to mobilize supporters, tell their stories and the stories of their constituents, and to share knowledge with people and communities everywhere. Jim Craner, MapTogether Geographic Geographic information systems (GIS) and online mapping applications continue to become

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Advancing Your Mission With GIS Tools

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 07:45:32 PST

A wealth of data sources are becoming available online, allowing data from around the world to be mingled, mixed, and mashed up -- and where data does not yet exist, communities are using these new tools to gather it themselves! Organizations Organizations around the globe are harnessing these tools and data to mobilize supporters, tell their stories and the stories of their constituents, and to share knowledge with people and communities everywhere. Jim Craner , MapTogether Geographic Geographic information systems (GIS) and online mapping applications continue to become

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Greening Your Technology

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 07:02:36 PST

David Deal is founder and CEO of Community IT Innovators. Anna Jaeger, TechSoup Global By now, you're probably aware that "green technology" exists. You might even be able to name a thing or two that would be considered green. But do you know if organizations like yours are using any of these technologies?

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C3 Announces 2010 In-Kind Donation and Grant Program for Nonprofits

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 01:59:02 PST

C3 is looking for examples of how organizations can increase internal communication, communication between donors, clients and communities , and/or effective communication strategies in times of crisis or other large scale campaigns. Applications are being accepted for $2,500 in-kind donations of audio, video, and web conferencing services from C3 Conferencing . C3 will also provide complimentary training as needed.

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Giving Your Audience What It Wants

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 12:00:54 PST

There are also a myriad of articles on the importance of segmenting in the nonprofit technology community : Flickr Photo: Luc Legay Fabulous NTEN board member Nancy Schwartz of Getting Attention released some very interesting research today. Apparently, Apparently, 8 of 10 nonprofits think their messaging fails to hit home.

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Nonprofit Marketing Report: Organizations Failing to Connect

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 00:52:17 PST

Nancy Schwartz, president of Nancy Schwartz & Company and blogger at Getting Attention , has just finished analyzing data from a nonprofit marketing survey of more than 900 nonprofit leaders, revealing that they are doing a poor job connecting with their audience and community . Nancy explains: “Nonprofit Nonprofit marketers say their key messages are failing to connect with the people who need to hear them and that is a serious problem.

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Using Social Media to Advocate for Change

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 17:51:13 PST

In the next few weeks, I'll also be posting a document on the Convio Community with instructions on how Convio clients can use this API to easily create a widget just like the POTUS. Author: Noah Cooper Like all of my colleagues here at Convio, I've been humbled by the many organizations who have rushed to the aid of the Haitian people over the past two weeks, raising record-breaking funds for relief efforts and showing how technology can be used to save lives.

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C3 Announces 2010 In-Kind Donation and Grant Program for Nonprofits

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 17:50:19 PST

Online Communications Planning for Nonprofits

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 15:17:42 PST

Is building your nonprofits online community a priority for your organization in 2010? Blogs: Building Your Online Community If your organization doesn’t have a blog, you should consider launching one in 2010. Take Frogloop’s Editor, Allyson Kapin, as your muse and build a community of bloggers. What about expanding your outreach? Here are my top seven ideas to consider implementing this coming year.

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NPO Evaluation, IE6, Still Waters for Wave

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 07:43:00 PST

We'll have a chance to get some preliminary answers to those questions on February 4th, when NTEN will sponsor a phone-in panel discussion with representatives of GuideStar and Charity Navigator, as well as members of the nonprofit community. Here are a few updates topics I've posted on in the last few months: Nonprofit Assessment The announcement that GuideStar , Charity Navigator and others would be moving away from the 990 form as their primary source for assessing nonprofit performance raised a lot of interesting questions, such as "How will assessments of outcomes be standardized in a way that is not too subjective?"

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A Revised Theory of Social Participation via "Me-to-We" Design

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 07:18:00 PST

Stage three lets people see where their interests and actions fit in the wider community of visitors to the institution. Consider Flickr, the photo-sharing community site. For three years, I've been using a "hierarchy of participation" diagram to talk about the ways that cultural institutions and platforms can scaffold social experiences among users. It's been problematic for several reasons - a bit confusing, hideous colors, and most of all, a pyramid shape that suggested that some kinds of social participation were better than others.

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Great reads from around the web on January 25th

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 07:05:48 PST

TakingITGlobal and Nabuur Launch New Action Guide on Online Volunteering | NetSquared, an initiative of TechSoupGlobal.org – "TakingITGlobal (TIG), an organization that operates the world’s most popular online community for young leaders, and Nabuur, an online volunteering platform that links Neighbours (online volunteers) with Villages (local communities ) in Africa, Asia and Latin America, announced today the release of a new Action Guide on Online Volunteering available for download on the TIG website." Chase Community Giving Contest Ends With Yet More Controversy

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Guest Post by Tom Dawkins: Ashoka’s use of Twitter

Sun, 24 Jan 2010 18:07:36 PST

Supporting these visionary leaders, raising the profile of their work and facilitating collaborations and sharing has allowed many to pursue a life of changemaking, scaling their impact and, in many instances, affecting national policy and changing the lives of thousands in their communities . And the most significant is this: great social entrepreneurs empower their communities , and invite and inspire those around them to become changemakers themselves. Note from Beth: Ashoka's Twitter account was placed on the Twitter Suggested List about the same time as my account . Tom Dawkins, who is responsible for Ashoka Tweets, offered to write a guest post reflecting on some best practices for using Twitter.

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Nonprofits: Have we had enough of "vote for me" fundraising yet?

Sun, 24 Jan 2010 09:29:35 PST

This weekend, the winners were announced in the Chase Community Challenge. On paper, it seemed simple enough. Please look at the 1+1+1 model that Salesforce uses (and Google as well, I think) for a better corporate giving program. The Chase Community Challenge started with an open nomination round. Here's a community challenge I want to see: Reward nonprofits for projects that require collaboration and networking. An example straight off the Chase gives $5 million to nonprofits based solely on the votes of regular folk on Facebook. "Their quot;Their

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Interview: Scott Anderson of ClientTrack

Sat, 23 Jan 2010 02:40:45 PST

Prior to his PhD, he worked as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in community health, adolescent residential treatment, and a faith-based organization. (I ClientTrack software products and professional services provide comprehensive solutions for the Health, Human and Social Services community . Enhances outcome reporting to strengthen fundraising and build community awareness, and I recently had the opportunity to connect with Scott Anderson from ClientTrack , a software solution aimed at increasing the impact of social benefit organizations and their work by “integrating people, processes, and technology.”

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Chase Giving Contest: Winners Announced Amidst Yet More Controversy

Sat, 23 Jan 2010 00:33:33 PST

Less than two hours ago, Chase Community Giving made the much anticipated announcement of the lucky winner of $1 million dollars and five finalists each receiving $100,000 on its contest Fan Page. Voting for the Chase Community Giving contest ended at midnight on January All week, I watched the organizations competing in the Chase Community This contest was the culmination of a two-part "vote for me" cause marketing strategy that started in November and has been rife with controversy. In some ways, it comes as no surprise that the race to the finish line ended

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The Mismeasure of War

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 13:34:00 PST

In our opinion, the HSR authors have done the IRC and the community of human rights analysts a service by highlighting errors in the Congo survey. The response to errors with statistical estimates must not be that we abandon science by relying on expert opinions and convenience samples. Our human rights team cares deeply about the issue of truth in human rights reporting. They just posted a response to a major debate on the question of whether deaths in war have been steadily declining.

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NTEN Member Buzz Round-Up: Jan 22nd

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 12:43:23 PST

Tags: community buzz NPTech nten member Flickr: Cambodia4Kids (Note: This is a weekly round-up of NTEN members doing and sharing their nptech awesome. Members are in bold. Tag your own news with "nten member" or "nptech" to help us find your awesome online, or contact Annaliese with your updates.)

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TechSoup Account Management 101: Registration

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 11:04:55 PST

Joining TechSoup as an individual gives you access to the TechSoup forums and other useful community resources. For nonprofits and libraries that would like to access the donated and discounted technology products and services available through TechSoup, the first step is to register. The registration process is in three parts: join, register, and qualify.

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Nothing But Net - Aid for Haiti Gets Webby

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 10:30:00 PST

Watching the nonprofit community step-up and shine in this time of need reminds me why I love working in this sector ( check out all these amazing orgs that are helping in Haiti .) Like all of you, I've been terribly saddened by the catastrophic earthquake that rocked Haiti last week. The suffering appears overwhelming, but so has the outpouring of aid and support for the Haitian people.

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Think Independent but Connected - Diversify Your Communication Strategy

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 08:31:00 PST

contact for your communities. We rely on technology. We need it to check the news, communicate communicate with others, promote/advertise your organization, conduct business transactions, transactions, and so much more. Technology and more specifically the Internet

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Is it really about gender?

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 07:44:15 PST

have been blogging for a few years (professionally – personal blogs for many years) and have reached enough people that I do feel I have a community of readers, though no where near your 30,000. Maybe it’s because I’m a “Millennial” and we have as a generation rethought or redesigned so many aspects of public and “private” identity, but I think less about if the person I am trying to connect with, the community I am trying to serve (I work in the nonprofit sector), or the audience I’m trying to reach is a man or a woman, or if they are arrogant

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Hackathons Aim to Improve Aid Distribution and Coordination in Haiti

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 06:44:30 PST

One of the most compelling examples are the Crisis Camps that the community of developers and web geeks are leading around the world. Working across disciplines these communities have the potential to be tremendously powerful and most importantly, save lives. Tags: Influence Collaboration Data & Visualizations Internet Strategy Online Community Social Medi Crisis Camp DC participants work hard to develop applications and tools for relief workers in Haiti. Earlier this week, I introduced a series of blog posts discussing the Good News Story in Haiti

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Nothing But Net - Aid for Haiti Gets Webby

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 00:00:00 PST

Watching the nonprofit community step-up and shine in this time of need reminds me why I love working in this sector ( check out all these amazing orgs that are helping in Haiti Like all of you, I've been terribly saddened by the catastrophic earthquake that rocked Haiti last week. The suffering appears overwhelming, but so has the outpouring of aid and support for the Haitian people.

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Support IPPF’s mobile health clinics and teams in Haiti!

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 13:55:58 PST

0160; • PROFAMIL staff and community health promoters in Jacmel and Port-au-Prince will organize mobile health units to bring primary health care, obstetric care, family planning and HIV prevention services to community -based sites, including tent cities and other temporary shelters that have been set up in and around both cities. Its clinics, community distribution points, and mobile health units provide hundreds of thousands of sexual and reproductive healthcare services annually. Photo from International Planned Parenthood Federation/Western Hemisphere Region showing the complete devastation of its PROFAMIL Haiti clinic.

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Free Webinar: Sharing Trainer's Social Media Bag of Tricks and Secrets

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 10:41:01 PST

And, many of our community members were just learning too. And then immediately create instructional materials and trainings for the community . When Maddie Grant at Social Fish invited me to do a FREE webinar over at the 365 Engage Community , I was thrilled to have an opportunity to reflect the practice of incorporating social media into instruction. Social Media Trainer's Bag of Tricks View more presentations from Beth Kanter . I've been involved with teaching and learning technology for nonprofits since 1993 when I worked for the

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How to Bring Facebook Fans to Your Nonprofit Blog: Part 1

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 04:59:00 PST

Tags: Non-profit technology nptech Marketing online community Blogging Social networking Facebook Non-profit Communications websites social medi A challenging social media question came in from a very small health-related nonprofit support group, recently: How can we move the active conversation on our Facebook fan Page over to our organization’s blog?...( read more ) ...Tags:

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Micro Volunteering for the Haiti Earthquake

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 09:59:23 PST

people’s ability to act and support communities in need like Haiti has only Ben Rigby, Co-Founder, recently left a comment on a post I wrote about nonprofit iPhone apps noting that he just launched a " Mission " at Extradinaries that asks their community to help find nonprofit iPhone apps. Tweet from kateatyrownrisk When a disaster of this magnitude strikes, our impulse is to help in some way.

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Sun Microsystems and San Francisco's McKinley Elementary School

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 09:41:09 PST

Here are some of the details of this great corporation-supporting- community project. As the fiscal positions of states and municipalities across the United States deteriorate due to deficits and budget shortfalls, school districts and educational funding are often the first casualties. While it's recognized that a strong information and communications technology (ICT) foundation is crucial to flourish in a knowledge-based economy, these same school districts often lack the basic resources to ensure that our next generation has those ICT skills and tools.

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Best Organizing Lessons from Organizing 2.0 Conference

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 16:33:29 PST

In December, we held one of the first conferences devoted to the intersection of online and community organizing, with a special emphasis on the labor movement, local electoral campaigns and small organizations. It was gratifying to be able to discuss issues that weren't getting enough attention at other conferences we attend. What made Organizing 2.0

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Guest Post by Anne Mai Bertelsen: Contests for Good - An Insider's View

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 05:00:00 PST

community on the value and role of contests for good. The triggered by allegations that Chase Bank’s Community Giving program Programs, like Chase’s Community Giving and Pepsi’s soon to be launched behind the Chase Community Giving Program is that the promotion took place Photo by Ben Golub Note from Beth: Anne Mai Bertlesen and I had a quick exchange at the end of year after I blogged about the Pepsi and Chase Giving Contests in December.

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Human Rights Trainings in Nigeria

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 15:48:00 PST

We look forward to continuing our work with the NHRC and other members of the Nigerian human rights community as they expand their use of Martus to help ensure the security of key human rights data - and those who provide it. ...Tags: A Guest Beneblog by Vijaya Tripathi As outreach coordinator for Martus , Benetech’s secure software application, I travel to many countries where human rights defenders need tools to gather, organize and back up information about human rights violations. Over the past few years, I have seen human rights groups become much more sophisticated

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Are Online Vote-for-Me Contests A Good Idea?

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 15:29:01 PST

Jared Paul, the co-founder of a new nonprofit that has a focus on homeless youth and one of the winners of the $25,000 in the first phase of Chase's Giving Community Contest offered to share his thoughts. While as of this writing, his organization is in the bottom 25% of the leaderboard he shares a few points below about why contests like this can be helpful for small, new nonprofits. name is Jared Paul and I’m the founder of a one and a half year old, San Francisco nonprofit called A Good Idea (AGI) that recently made the top 100 in the Chase Community Giving contest.

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Chase Community Giving Contest: The Organizations on the Leaderboard Go Up and Down

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 12:14:30 PST

In November, the Chase Community Giving launched Over the holidays and into early January, the Chase Community Giving contest quietly implemented a leader board , a scoreboard showing who is winning based on the number of votes. In November, the Chase Community Giving launched a contest on Facebook. (Screen capture of Leaderboard as of Monday, Jan. 18th at 10:00 am w/ four days to go in the voting process.)

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Return on Engagement for your Community

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 08:28:30 PST

Day and I’ve been watching the time zones wake up in the US and start Twittering about the various service projects and community building activities everyone is participating in. the first thing that comes to mind is community : building it, empowering it, moving it to action, and nurturing it. When I think of those four focus areas for community , I do NOT think of the number of fans Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. It’s been heart warming and also frustrating – I wish I could be so many places at once!

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Five Simple (and Fun) Ways to Promote Nonprofits on FourSquare

Sun, 17 Jan 2010 10:32:03 PST

Much of the FourSquare community is built around the idea of adding “Tips” to venues. Tips are a great way to promote nonprofits to the FourSquare community . For now, since the FourSquare community is relatively small, simply check-in every time you personally attend a nonprofit-related event. FourSquare is definitely starting to catch on with enterprising techie folks that love to be early adopters. That’s a good a sign.

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Haiti Earthquake: Orphans, Crisis Mapping, and Tech Volunteers

Sat, 16 Jan 2010 09:29:15 PST

I've had some posts in pipeline following up on social media metrics and the Chase Community Giving Contest second phase, but wanted to share these two stories from Haiti from on the ground and a bird's eye view. I received an update from Ushahidi , co-founder Ory Okolloh: We have received tremendous support from the crisis mapping community through the Crisis Mapping Network , the Earthquake Aftermath in Jacmel Photos by Andrew Bigosinski, Bigosinski, Director of Ciné Lekol.

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NTEN Member Buzz Round-Up: First in 2010!

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 13:41:05 PST

SPAM and sharing with the community since 2008. quot; to the NTEN community for showing how Tags: community buzz nten membe (Note: This is a weekly round-up of NTEN members doing and sharing their their nptech awesome. Members are in bold.

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Campaigning #4Change Recap

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 10:31:05 PST

sdmediareform : Measure campaigns by if it is helping advance community exposure. Starting off 2010, the monthly #4change Twitter chat focused on the topic of campaigning with social media. There were quite a few participants and some really great conversation. I’ve tried to pull out some of the relevant tweets from the Twitter stream to help follow the flow of the conversation in

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Tips for a successful website

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 09:42:00 PST

Once a visitor comes to your site, consider ways to "convert" them. Having some type of call to action on the landing page will allow you to capture information by having visitors fill out a form, or responding to short survey. For example, there is currently a link on Coastal Community Foundation's home page , inviting feedback on the Annual Report as a call to action. Hubspot recently offered a free webinar on website redesign . The entire recording is definitely worth watching. In this post, I want to highlight some of their tips for a successful site whether you are redesigning

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Great reads from around the web on January 15th

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 08:12:15 PST

1 vote can equal $1 million « Nonprofit Communications: Duck Call Blog – "Today is the first day people can vote in the final round of the Chase Community Giving contest on Facebook. I come across so many great conversations, ideas, and resources all over the web every day. Here are some of the most interesting things I’ve found recently (as of January 15th).

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Beaconfire Survey: Twitter

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 11:53:29 PST

Amadie, Marketing Consultant (@amadie): I tweet on online community , fundraising, analytics, and general randomness. Periodically, we do a survey of Beaconfire staff to get impressions on a variety of non-profit technology issues. All opinions expressed here are solely those of their authors. Twitter is an increasingly important player in social media

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onPhilanthropy: Articles: Online Community Responds Swiftly to Haiti Suffering

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 05:20:00 PST

onPhilanthropy: Articles: Online Community Responds Swiftly to Haiti Suffering: "Online Community Responds Swiftly to Haiti SufferingWednesday, January 13, 2010By: Susan Carey DempseyThere is little good news out of Haiti today, as it continues to assess the damage and begin to help the survivors of the 7.0 earthquake that struck the impoverished nation yesterday. In an effort to learn how donors ...Tags:

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7 Things I learned From #Beth53 Fundraiser and PoST Class

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 23:46:41 PST

And, the low goal was one of the reasons that community rallied with the self-organized surprise party. You Can't Measure Love or Creativity, But These Are Essential Online Community or Network Signs of Life You can't quantify love as a metric, but it is important sign or signal of life in your online community . Final Slides PoST View more presentations from Beth Kanter . The key to success in social media is to leave room for reflection at the end of a project.

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Show your colors

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 16:18:09 PST

To honor the nptech community at the core of The Beacon’s very existence, we want to gloriously and unabashedly adorn the walls of the lounge with posters/artwork from nonprofit organizations like yours. As some of you may remember, last March Beaconfire created “The Beacon: Lounge with a Conscience” , a gathering place at south by southwest interactive for tech social do-gooders and the nonprofit geekeratti (like you!) to find one another, share ideas and decompress between sessions.

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Introducing a New National Nonprofit Resource Organization

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 12:41:58 PST

Their current list of vendors includes some companies we know the NTEN community already uses, including Survey Monkey, Constant Contact, GoToMeeting, and GrantStation. Tags: community buz At the end of last year, I was introduced to a new organization, the Non-Profit Purchasing Group (NPPG) , which launched this month . Under the direction of Dan Engel, who has a background in the nonprofit sector, NPPG is providing just what its name implies: group purchasing power for nonprofit organizations, in order to cut down on on-going operating costs and make it easier for nonprofits

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Californians Txt 4 Flu Info

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 12:20:15 PST

The ubiquity of mobile phones, combined with the high projected demand for vaccinations, makes this an ideal solution to help Californians from all communities obtain vaccinations and receive necessary information on a timely basis. “We MOBILE COMMONS’ MOBILE MESSAGING PLATFORM PROVIDES ADDITIONAL LINE OF DEFENSE THIS FLU SEASON Text FLU and your address to 30644 to find the closest H1N1 vaccine in California

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Digital Media and Learning Competition Opens Friday

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 11:50:02 PST

That's why you're part of the NTEN community! You're an innovative thinker, right? Of course you are! So, put on your innovative thinking cap, because we have a homework assignment for you. Ruby Ruby Sinreich, longtime NTEN member and all-around fabulous gal, gave me a heads up that the 2010 Digital media and Learning Competition opens up on Friday.

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Great reads from around the web on January 13th

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 10:00:31 PST

Collaborations are going to be a driving force in building stronger relationships and stronger communities. In the new decade we are in the “perfect collaboration storm:” energy around our “ community visions”, enormous critical community needs, myriad of new nonprofit organizations, and desire for greater impact. Our community is whole and interconnected; we can’t create a powerful vision in silos." I come across so many great conversations, ideas, and resources all over the web every day. Here are some of the most interesting things I’ve

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TechSouper Has Blogged His Way to Hyderabad!

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 13:26:28 PST

Aside from Elliot's big honor, TechSoup's Global Community Development Manager of NetSquared , Amy Sample-Ward , was among the six finalists . Our very own Elliot Harmon , talented writer , blogger , forum host , poet , and all-around-good-guy was notified last week that he's won Ashoka's "Blog Your Way to Hyderabad" contest. We're pleased as punch.

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Guest Post on Frogloop: Comeback lines to Collaboration Objectors

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 13:20:22 PST

Regardless of whether the project or work in question is contained within your organization, your physical community , or across the sector/world, collaborating with all those who have a stake in the outcome and the success of the project can ONLY create a more valuable outcome and process. When it comes to social change and community impact work, who gets the credit for projects or successes is sadly still part of the picture. I’m so thrilled to have a guest post up on the Frogloop blog today! Frogloop is Care2’s nonprofit online marketing blog where you’ll

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Facebook and Nonprofits: Success Stories? ROI?

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 13:06:58 PST

But I must confess that I sometimes think that Facebook is overrated as a communications and community -building tool. community engagement, etc. Compared to Twitter and MySpace, it’s been a much more difficult community to grow and engage. Mostly large nonprofits with a full-time social I like Facebook. Mostly to stay in touch with close friends.

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Beth’s Surprise Party: A Case Study in Crowdsourced Action

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 02:45:10 PST

Some posted to community blogs like NetSquared . Yesterday was a very exciting day: we threw a surprise party for Beth Kanter online! It was a bit of fun mixed with experiment, and I think it was really successful. Here are some reflections about how we used crowdsourcing techniques for a very fast-moving campaign and lessons learned that may apply to your work.

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I Love You Beth Kanter!

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 15:35:51 PST

She gives to the NTEN community every day, the perfect example of the values that we hold. She's the first person we think of when we think of our members and what we want our community to be. The I'm very late to the game (as usual), but I couldn't let the day pass without recognizing my good friend Beth Kanter on her birthday. So this post is an ode to Beth. Here

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Convio, NTEN and Miss Piggy Want to See You at the NTC!

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 14:44:08 PST

Tags: 10NTC Community convio muppets scholarships Progra Flickr Photo: feastoffun The rumor on the street is Miss Piggy registered for the NTC. She'd love to see you at there. So would Convio and NTEN! That's That's why we've teamed up to offer

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Association Chat (#assnchat) Blog Launched

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 10:29:00 PST

Tags: Associations Blogging chat Non-profit technology nptech online community social media Social networking Twitte Launched today, Association Chat’s new blog helps association folks to connect with colleagues in the weekly #assnchat Twitter chat, and extends the conversation's reach from Twitter to the wider Web. Could your own organization and its chapters (or a network of nonprofits that share a common cause) do something similar, to help amplify your own online message?...(

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Happy Birthday Beth!

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 08:59:22 PST

Beth has been getting some accolades from the NTEN community and others. We have been blessed with Beth in our community and we want to take this opportunity to wish her a very very happy birthday. Today is Beth Kanter’s birthday. If you have anything to do with nonprofits, social media, fundraising, Twitter, Cambodia, foundations, NTEN, and haven’t been living under a rock, you know Beth.

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Happy Birthday Beth!

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 05:30:00 PST

The Nonprofit Technology community is an innovative and diverse collection of amazing dogooders. Having the privilege to be a part of this community has literally been a life-altering endeavor for me, shaping the direction and focus of my career in so many ways. Beth has always been there when the nonprofit community needed her, which is why we are all here today! Many of my NPTech peers have inspired me on this journey, but none more so than Beth Kanter. Those of you who have read Beth's Blog , seen her speak, or just sat with her at a conference for 5 minutes know

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Happy Birthday Beth Kanter- Nonprofit Social Media Maven and Endless Source of Inspiration

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 05:01:16 PST

Author: Jordan Viator Happy Birthday to a truly brilliant member of the nonprofit community – Beth Kanter ! In ode to Beth and to provide reasons on why everyone should consider giving to her birthday cause, here is my top ten list of why Beth Kanter is so wonderful – not only to me personally but to the entire nonprofit community : Where she finds the time, I don’t think any of us know, but her endless supply of news, Today, Beth turns 53 and has one birthday wish: to send 53 Cambodian children to school by raising $530 on Facebook. Check out her

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Give your 2010 Strategy a Jumpstart with these Free Nonprofit Webinars – Starting Tomorrow!

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 00:00:00 PST

Cause Minded is a new online community that brings together thought leaders in the philanthropic industry to offer expertise and opinion on top industry issue If you are having trouble with the fact that 2009 is indeed over, then you may need a MindStart. (Courtesy Courtesy of Cause Minded.)

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Join the surprise party for Beth Kanter!

Sun, 10 Jan 2010 22:00:43 PST

Last week, Stacy Monk and I were chatting and thought that our community could help smash that goal by raising much more funds as well as awareness for the work the Sharing Foundation does in Cambodia. reminding her how much she’s contributed to the community . Thank you, Beth, for all that you do to keep the community involved in every step of your work Happy Birthday! Today we are throwing an online surprise birthday party for Beth Kanter , and you’re invited!

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Resolve to Quit Smoking with BecomeAnEx.org

Sun, 10 Jan 2010 19:30:24 PST

The EX campaign is about re-learning your life without cigarettes and the EX site plays an important role in helping smokers learn their triggers and then maximize support from family, friends and the community of users at the EX community . The community portion of the site was originally created using the Ning social networking platform. As the New Year begins and resolutions to quit smoking proliferate, Beaconfire is pleased to be working with the The American Legacy Foundation and their smoking cessation program – BecomeAnEX.org . Recently, Beaconfire helped

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Sharing Birthday Wishes and Donations from Cambodia and More Insights!

Sat, 09 Jan 2010 10:05:43 PST

If your organization ventures out on social networks - tries a few experiments - you never now what connections will be made and what relationships will be cultivated. The community of people who have support the Sharing Foundation through my connection with them constantly surprises me. What also surprises me are there are people I don't know face-to-face who have donated. My birthday is on Monday, January 11th on Monday. I'm celebrating with an action learning experiment and birthday wish fundraiser for Cambodian children.

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An Interview with Robert Chatwani on Giving Works Trends 2009

Fri, 08 Jan 2010 17:31:27 PST

According to the report, the eBay community gave $50 million to nonprofits, a 17% jump over 2008 despite the ongoing recession. The At eBay, we think about citizenship and sustainability in terms of People, Planet, and Communities. The birth of the Giving Works program at eBay was, in large part, a response the charitable - and purely altruistic - instincts of our buyer community. Right before the holidays, eBay released 2009 figures for Giving Works , its fundraising program and marked a historic record for total funds raised for non-profits through ebay.com. The program allows individuals

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Disruptive Philanthropy: Important resource in the works for online giving community

Fri, 08 Jan 2010 12:30:00 PST

Lucy Bernholz, Edward Skloot, and Barry Varela have co-authored an exceptionally important paper titled "Disrupting Philanthropy: Technology and the Future of the Social Sector." " Disrupting Philanthropy " will be the latest in very short list of comprehensive resources on the online giving sector, and the first that places the question of second- and third-order changes -- the ones that will "ripple out from digitization" of the philanthropic sector -- at the front and center of an inquiry.* Here's

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Cultivating Food Entrepreneurs: Interview with Patricia Loya of La Cocina

Fri, 08 Jan 2010 12:01:00 PST

They focus primarily on women from culturally diverse and immigrant communities . Our conversation began with Patricia explaining the need that La Cocina fills. Patricia Loya: La Cocina fills a need that no other organization in the Bay Area fills, and that is that we provide intensive one-on-one technical assistance, access to markets, and a full state-of-the-art commercial kitchen facility to people who otherwise would not have access to those resources: mainly women, low-income immigrants, and other people like that in our community . "Fast forward four years later, she's the owner of her own company.

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Ring in 2010 with New Resolutions to Revitalize Your Nonprofit in the New Year

Fri, 08 Jan 2010 05:53:49 PST

According to community discussions and feedback, more than ever organizations see their online initiatives and integration with their traditional channels as a mission-critical function for reasons including: The Resolutions Guide delves into each of the above resolutions, providing do-it-yourself tips to help ensure the resolutions can be attainted and sustained, including success stories from peers and resolutions made by community leaders such as NTEN , AFP and many more. Author: Jordan Viator The New Year has officially begun, and it’s the perfect time to reflect

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New on SSIR: Organizations and Individuals Fundraising in Social Media

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 23:53:12 PST

Offline : you would probably not have someone who’s had no physical connection with your organization be so excited about your work that they design and produce their own fliers about your work and then canvass their local community to raise awareness or your programs. I have a new post up on the Stanford Social Innovation Review blog and I’d love to hear your thoughts! You can read the full post and comment on the SSIR blog or be part of the conversation below.

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Guide to SMS for Social Change

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 13:06:42 PST

Water sanitation advice and community training updates are sent to municipal counselors. Our friends at Ashoka ( previously ) recently created an excellent downloadable guide to using SMS (text messages) for social change. You can download the guide directly (1.1 MB PDF) or learn more about it here .

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Unison 2.0 - Really?

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 05:12:03 PST

There's a fond place in my heart for community so simple, concise and text-based. via panic.com Wow. Folks are debating whether RSS is dead and there's a new Usenet reader. Not really new...a a

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Great reads from around the web on January 5th

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 07:00:07 PST

Lend4Health is a non-profit organization that facilitates community -funded, interest-free micro-loans as a creative funding option for individuals and groups seeking optimal health. I come across so many great conversations, ideas, and resources all over the web every day. Here are some of the most interesting things I’ve found recently (as of January 5th).

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Facebook Turns to the Crowd to Monitor the Crowdies | Technomix | Fast Company

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 06:16:00 PST

Facebook Turns to the Crowd to Monitor the Crowdies | Technomix | Fast Company: "It's called the 'Facebook Community Council' and according to the group's motto it exists to 'harness the power and intelligence of Facebook users to support us in keeping Facebook a trusted and vibrant community .' This all sounds very lofty, very un-dictatorial and much more hippyish, power-to-the-people tha

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Is Wikipedia Loves Art Getting "Better"?

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 17:08:00 PST

But next month, Britain Loves Wikipedia will commence--the third instance of a strange and fascinating collaborative project between museums and the Wikipedia community (Wikimedians). I realize, however, that this perspective reflects my own value judgment that local community engagement is a more important part of museum missions than providing digital access to content. There is a large It's rare that a participatory museum project is more than a one-shot affair. The project's implementation keeps changing, and I can't decide whether it is getting better or just different.

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GIS Mapping: What Discrimination Looks Like

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 13:49:20 PST

The Cedar Grove Institute for Sustainable Communities created a map showing how the limited water lines in one rural neighborhood were serving many more white families than families of other races. Miller-McCune has a story this month on geographic information system (GIS) mapping and the growing role it's playing in city-planning advocacy ( via ). Profiling a handful of nonprofits using GIS to expose institutional prejudice, the article argues that GIS isn't only about presenting information more attractively; it's about turning unwieldy amounts of data into a direct, actionable call

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Things We Like: Best of 2009

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 12:17:36 PST

There's a growing community of humorists working the underbelly of Amazon.com. Here are the most clicked on "Things We Like" links from 2009. Patience pants . Not only is it nifty piece, it attracted some of our best spam comments of the year: "Thanks for pants.

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What’s ahead in 2010?

Sun, 03 Jan 2010 13:36:13 PST

Lastly, I want to create some open spaces for people to not just cheer for collaboration but also examine and explain some of the issues and barriers that organizations, individuals, campaigners or community members face when trying to approach collaboration. Community : As much as I see collaboration as the key to success, I also community as the core of every sector, every campaign, and every movement. I’ve just spent a very wonderful 2.5 weeks offline with friends and family for the holidays.

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January #4Change Chat Topic: Campaigning

Sun, 03 Jan 2010 13:04:11 PST

local community building The January #4Change Twitter Chat will focus on the use of Twitter and other social media tools in campaigning. About the Topic Campaigning can mean many different things and we want to keep the definition of the topic fairly open for this chat, in order to keep insights, resources and conversation in the Q/A format as open to valuable input as possible.

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Giving the Gift of Accessibility

Wed, 30 Dec 2009 10:52:00 PST

There's so much going on these days at Bookshare: a growing community that's getting hard to keep track of! We came up with a book wishlist for donors who wanted to pitch in and buy specific books requested by Bookshare members. We have talented members of the team that whip together graphics and even videos to promote these! It was fun singing along in the Bookshare holiday video . One donor made a special offer to our top volunteers, those who have provided at least 150 books to Bookshare: that they could request any one book and we'd (not they!)

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I’m going to Rwanda

Tue, 29 Dec 2009 20:50:56 PST

was floored by the outcomes they are getting, and the thoughtful design of the community health program. watched this video and emailed the link to a friend of mine with the message, “this is the work I want to do with my life–helping people build community -based systems that really work.” Today I got confirmation of some great news–in February I’ll be going to Rwanda for a week to help install an open source medical records system at a rural health clinic! I’ll be going with Lucky Gunasekara and meeting with Partners in Health .

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Great reads from around the web on December 25th

Thu, 24 Dec 2009 21:50:19 PST

34; I've used MyBlogLog on this blog as a chance for readers visiting the website to be welcomed by the faces of fellow readers, and not just me; I think, as is explained in this article from ReadWriteWeb, that the MyBlogLog service opened the door to some very interesting uses of community data and will be watching the developments on its future closely. Read on to see how wikis help these organizations reach out to their communities , manage volunteers, create resources, and more." I come across so many great conversations, ideas, and resources all over the web every day.

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Deconstructing An Angry Crowd: What Can We Learn?

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 21:44:59 PST

In Round One of the Chase Community Giving program, Facebook Community Giving Advisory Board will review the top vote-getters to help detailing the difference they would make in their local community with the Should online contests be redesigned or just go away? That's the question that Kari Dunn Saratovsky asks in a post over at the Case Foundation blog , one of many blog posts and tweets about the controversy surrounding how the Chase Bank handled its online contest to

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Nonprofit Calendars for 2010

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 12:25:00 PST

I asked my Facebook and Twitter pals for suggestions, and they came up with the list below: Amnesty International Antenna Theater's Ecological Calendar (They have an iPhone app too !) Arthritis Foundation ASPCA Audubon Canadian Down Syndrome Society David Suzuki Foundation Defenders of Wildlife (with donation) Global Exchange Golden Retriever Club of America Holt International Humane Society (check your region's branch) International Campaign for Tibet Lower Eastside Girls Club New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs (not really a nonprofit,

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Webinar Recording: Assistive Technology for Public Computers

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 10:07:29 PST

Tags: Accessible Technology Community Tech Centers Community Tech Centers Hardware Tech Plannin Jane Vincent, Usability/Accessibility Manager for the Center for Accessible Technology in Berkeley, California presented on a TechSoup webinar that focused on Assistive Technologies for Public Computers . She gave a wonderful talk about how to make public computer labs more accessible for everyone!

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Happy 5th Birthday Global Voices!

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 22:47:53 PST

Global Voices is a community of more than 200 bloggers around the world who I joined the community several months after Global Voices got started after meeting Rebecca because of a strong interest in connecting with Cambodian bloggers . who work together to bring reports from blogs and citizen citizen media around the world, with emphasis on voices that are not ordinarily

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TechSoup Customer Service Hours Reduced for the Holidays

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 14:17:03 PST

My full update is below but know that you can check out our FAQ page and contact information to learn more and ask (or answer) questions in our helpful Community Forums . Greetings! This is my first blog post and I'm excited to talk about customer service at TechSoup.org. With this post, I want to provide information that will explain steps we've recently taken to focus service efforts

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Google Checkout Free to Nonprofits in 2010

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 11:02:42 PST

Google and the nonprofit community have had a very Jim-and-Pam* relationship over the past two years, as Google has repeatedly extended the end date for donated Google Checkout services but stayed equivocal about whether we can expect to see the free services indefinitely. Today's good news is that the checkout services will be free for another year (until January 1, 2011), but only for nonprofits also enrolled in Google Grants for free advertising. If you have a Google Checkout account and a Google Grants account, you need to link them to take advantage of the donated checkout

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Chicago-Area Nonprofits: 2010 Technology Leadership Award Applications Due January 29

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 10:18:19 PST

2007 - America's Second Harvest (now Feeding America): Implemented the Choice System (CS), a web-based tool, which allows members to bid on specific product donations they wish to acquire and distribute to their community agencies. Tags: Accessible Technology Community Tech Centers Community Tech Centers Consultants Digital Divide Grants for Technology Grants for Technology Running Your Organization Tech Planning Tech Support Trainin Lumity , a nonprofit organization serving the Chicago region for 25 years, "helps charitable organizations to more effectively fulfill their missions through technology, financial support services, and training."

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Won't You Let me Take You On A Sea Change?

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 08:00:00 PST

And we need to use our influence in the nonprofit software development community to make sure that NPOs have software that can generate these reports. We'll need the whole community in on this. ...Tags: Last week, I reported that Nonprofit assessors like Charity Navigator and Guidestar will be moving to a model of judging effectiveness (as opposed to thriftiness). The title of my post drew some criticism.

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What Lessons Will Pepsi Learn About Crowdsourcing for Social Good from Chase Bank Contest Fail?

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 23:12:43 PST

Instead, Pepsi is using the money for lethal generosity through its Pepsi Refresh Project , a crowdsourced cause marketing effort to give away $20 million in grants to help revamp communities . The Chase Community Giving contest What can Pepsi learn so its contest can truly make a difference in local communities , help them sell more soda, and avoid having its brand Pepsi is taking a bold move. It's not spending money on Super Bowl ads for Pepsi beverages.

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Best Campaigns of 2009

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 12:17:37 PST

Twestival brought together Twitter communities from all over the world for fun parties in February 2009. The people who work in online advocacy and fundraising are some of the most creative people I know. In 2009 their campaigns made me laugh or helped me channel my frustration over injustices into action. A

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Charities Cry Foul on Chase Facebook Charitable Giving Contest

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 00:32:24 PST

The Chase Community Giving contest on Facebook is one of the biggest online contests thus far, open open to more than 500,000 charities. As of this writing, 1,027,398 people joined Chase’s fan page to cast votes for their favorite charities. The top 100 "eligible" vote getters, announced a few days ago, received $25,000.

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NonProfit 2.0 UnConference and holiday discount

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 12:02:23 PST

Are you working in the nonprofit community? NonProfit 2.0 Unconference is coming to Washington, D.C., February 12, 2010, and promises to be “more than just a conference on the next generation web.” 8221; Plus, if you register soon you can get a 20% discount!

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NTEN Member Buzz Round-Up: Last of 2009!

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 11:41:51 PST

technology community , can help make tracking and reporting more effective Tags: community buzz nten member (Note: This is a weekly round-up of NTEN members doing and sharing their their nptech awesome. Members are in bold.

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Social Actions 2009 Year End Summary and Dashboard

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 08:00:00 PST

Social Actions 2009 Year End Summary , a review of the community , projects, and conversations that have defined our work in 2009 Blog posts, tweets, phone calls -- even the rare in-person connections that conferences and meetups bring -- none do justice to expressing just how grateful we are to be working in this field, with and for an amazing community . Looking 'Tis the season for year-end wrap ups of all kinds. This year, we've prepared two summaries:

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Technology grants slated for Spokane | Spokesman.com | Dec 18, 2009

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 07:19:00 PST

Technology grants slated for Spokane | Spokesman.com | Dec 18, 2009: "Administering the two grants here is the Spokane nonprofit Tincan, or The Inland Northwest Community Access Network. The grants will help all of Spokane’s city libraries and its four city-supported community centers upgrade their broadband connections, said Karen Michaelson, Tincan’s executive director. Also benefiting ar

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The Science Behind the Art - Broadway Cares / Equity Fights AIDS - Part 1

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 00:00:00 PST

They are a 22 year old organization that has already made a huge impact in the broadway community and enjoys respect and support from people on both sides of the curtain - from the performers, directors and producers to their audiences and the general publi Broadway Cares is a nonprofit organization focused on AIDS fundraising and grants within the entertainment industry... specifically, Broadway!

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The Peer Water Exchange | Blue Planet Run

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 15:57:00 PST

So, your effort to address the needs of your community through a new water or sanitation project is going to be evaluated by a group of people who have been through doing the same thing in their communities . Not only that, projects agree to remain part of the network, providing information about the success of their projects after they are completed. With all the energy around effectiveness and transparency, PWX is a great example of how to operate a network of hundreds of projects in different communities , with the detailed project information available to donors and partners.

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Congrats to Book Winners - Twitter for Dummies, Web Analytics 2.0 and The New Community Rules

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 14:41:15 PST

try! The New Community Rules was reviewed in a guest post by Angus Parker of Wiser Earth . I'm pleased pleased to announce the winners of the last couple of book giveaways. In In return for receiving the book, the winners

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Share Your Have Fun Do Good Photos & Stories using The Extraodinaries

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:00:00 PST

The Iron Souls is a Motorcycle Club based out of Oakland California that gives back to the betterment of the community. Hello Have Fun Do Gooders! As some of you know, I do some blogging for The Extraordinaries , a microvolunteering application that you can use on your iPhone , or your computer. Most of the microvolunteering opportunities are for nonprofits, but the folks at The Extraordinaries recently added a Have Fun Do Good microvolunteer opportunity!

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Athens charity wins $25,000 in Facebook competition | ajc.com

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 06:30:00 PST

Athens charity wins $25,000 in Facebook competition | ajc.com: "An Athens-based organization raising money for muscular dystrophy research has been awarded $25,000 from the Chase Community Foundation as one of 100 charities chosen by Facebook users to receive grants." ...Tags: Tags: NPOnlineFunrdaising NPFacebook NPChaseCommunityFoundatio

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Tweeting for Climate Change? Lessons Learned from 1Sky’s Twitter Campaign

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 13:28:34 PST

Recent events in Iran and India showed Twitter's ability to build a groundswell and deploy rapid response messaging, albeit in a much less urgent sense in holding rallies and actions related to climate change. This fall, with the Senate version of a climate bill coming into the foreground, we engaged the community in creating a message that could define a call to action for the climate movement. So, we created and launched the "1Climate, 1Tweet" contest, a Twitter campaign designed to meet very general goals of community involvement in campaign messaging and increased messaging in

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Tweeting for climate? Lessons learned from 1Sky’s Twitter campaign

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 13:28:34 PST

Can Social Network Analysis Help You Improve Your Social Media Strategy?

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 09:37:50 PST

He showed an example of this in an online community SNA and pointed out the lurkers, conversation starters, trolls, based on particular patterns in the map. 2009 - Connected Action - Marc Smith - Social Media Network Analysis View more presentations from Marc Smith . In our book, The Networked Nonprofit , co-authored with Allison Fine, we provide an overview of mapping your social network in Twitter and other sites using some of the social network analysis tools available.

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Avinash Kaushik on Failing Fast (Win A Copy of Web Analytics 2.0)

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 23:19:34 PST

The F-word chapter (Failure) offers some really useful tips about creating and nurturing a "experiment culture." I was thrilled to discover this part of the book because I'm designing a learning community /technical project that is based on valuing experimentation. Over two years ago, I made a screencast about Web Analytics for Nonprofits that covered the basics of using google analytics, web metrics, and some nonprofit case studies featuring Laura White and the Idealist. That's just about when I discovered Avinash Kaushik's blog, Occam's Razor and his first book on Web analytics

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Six Steps to Making Risky Projects Possible

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 15:12:00 PST

Many museums are making this shift as they hire “ community managers” who communicate with users on an ongoing basis. Last month, I gave the closing keynote at the National Digital Forum in New Zealand. The end of a conference is often a time of great enthusiasm quickly followed by a gaping maw of inability to act on that enthusiasm back at work. For this reason, I spoke specifically

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Who's Your Nonprofit Hero?

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 10:16:44 PST

The one that that does all that amazing work in your community with MacGyver -like tenacity? They are sponsoring 50 free memberships for the heroes of the nonpropfit community . So You know that organization. The one that is changing the world with just one working laptop, a used printer, and a lot of duct tape? There There are a lot of orgs

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Guest Post by Jordan Viator: Submit, Share and Shout Out - Nominate Your Nonprofit Holiday Hero to Win a Free NTEN Membership!

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 07:52:42 PST

Collaborating with leaders in the nonprofit tech community , we’ve put tap into the spirit of giving to give back to the amazing community of nonprofit with the folks over at NTEN , we decided the nonprofit community itself should be empowered to recognize The holidays are in full swing, and in between the last minute shopping, shopping, out-of-town guests, and end-of-year nonprofit campaigns, most of

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Submit, Share and Shout Out - Nominate Your Nonprofit Holiday Hero to Win a Free NTEN Membership!

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 07:31:36 PST

Collaborating with leaders in the nonprofit tech community , we’ve put out heads together to find a way to come together this season and tap into the spirit of giving to give back to the amazing community of nonprofit professionals that do wonderful things all year. Working with the folks over at NTEN , we decided the nonprofit community itself should be empowered to recognize the people of their choice to win none other than a membership to the best nonprofit technology organization around, The Nonprofit Technology Network! Author: Jordan Viator The holidays

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Get Ready For A Sea Change In Nonprofit Assessment Metrics

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 07:15:00 PST

More to the point, the metrics that value social organizational effectiveness need to be developed by a broad community , not a small group or segment of that community. So here's what's clear to me: - Developing standardized metrics, with broad input from the entire community , will benefit everyone. - Determining what those metrics are and should be will require improvements in data management and reporting systems. Last week, GuideStar, Charity Navigator, and three other nonprofit assessment and reporting organizations made a huge announcement : the metrics that they track are about to change .

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ATTN Nonprofits: Major Changes Coming Soon to Facebook Fan Pages

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 06:55:00 PST

Having a good community builder as your Facebook Admin will be essential. Scheduled to occur sometime between late 2009 and early 2010, some major changes are coming to Facebook Fan Pages. My first instinct is that the changes below are going to significantly impact nonprofits, and in some cases, not in a good way. I

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Network + Self-Organizing + Location + Data Visualization = 2010

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 12:05:55 PST

Lucy Bernholz tipped me off to Groundcrew is a web/mobile software that organizes groups of people in real time in real life to work on projects and allows for complex coordination of tasks and communities . I've been playing in a sand box to explore online collaboration/social media tools and how they support network weaving. The big ah ha for me during our reflection that was that effective online collaboration tools for working in a networked way can't have top-down control interaction design.

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Artists Win This House: Crowdfunded Essay Contest Pays the Mortgage

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 07:30:00 PST

What other questions or ideas does this story ignite, and will you be sharing the link with others in the art communit A couple in Maine is launching an essay contest to give a home to an artist. From their website, [link] : We are both artists, (a musician and an illustrator) we got together and found that we had one house too many.

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Social Actions is Looking for a Community Engagement Intern

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 09:30:00 PST

Social Actions is looking for a Community Engagement Intern to help manage and grow Social Actions' online communities . Send introductions, answer questions, highlight community members and group activity, and otherwise engage with Social Actions' community on My Social Actions, Twitter, and Facebook - Make introductions between Social Actions community members with shared interests - Also posted on Idealist >> Social Responsibilities -

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NetSquared White Paper: Building Community To Foster Social Innovation

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 08:09:27 PST

At NetSquared (where I am happy to serve as the Global Community Development Manager) we are proud, honored, and in awe every day of the very special global community made up of local groups and their networks, the ties between local groups around the world, and the project teams from all over the globe focused on innovations that help us make the world a better place. Reflecting on the Community and the work being done in every corner of the world, we’ve tried to articulate some of the aspects that make the NetSquared Community so unique and also so powerful.

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Real-Time Web Social Action Events: Blurring the Offline/Online Distinction?

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 20:28:03 PST

The 350.org Facebook community has thrown their weight behind the Maldives President by leaving comments on his Facebook page . This Two weeks ago, I wrote up my prediction for fundraising trends for 2009 . My guess is as we enter 2010, might we see the invention of Real Time Web fundraising events As more nonprofit explore the possibilities of location-based social networks and fundraising , the distinctions between online/offline fundraising will melt away.

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.:: Welcome To The Jewish Ledger ::.

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 13:05:00 PST

Five years ago, Cyral Sheldon helped found the Teen Leadership and Philanthropy Institute, then a program of Yachad, the Greater Hartford Jewish Community High School. The aim: Over the course of an academic year, teach high-school students how to be involved, committed citizens of a Jewish communit .:: Welcome To The Jewish Ledger ::.: "Five

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Share your best post in the Net2 Think Tank

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 06:43:59 PST

We post a question or topic to the NetSquared community and participants submit responses either on their own blogs or on the NetSquared Community Blog. It’s already December and we are fast approaching 2010. As a way to hold on a bit longer to 2009, this Net2 Think Tank asks for your best blog post from the year. We know you wrote about some really

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Great reads from around the web on December 10th

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 02:00:25 PST

We are now putting that experience to work with Click for a Cause to help struggling non-profits to engage and energize their communities in order to increase participation and ignite fundraising efforts during this difficult economic time." I come across so many great conversations, ideas, and resources all over the web every day. Here are some of the most interesting things I’ve found recently (as of December 10th).

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Join A Discussion About Social Innovation in Texas Without Leaving Your Computer!

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 22:55:00 PST

social enterprises addressing fundamental community problems. This is the first time I've been pitched to host a live stream of a conference on my blog and ask a question of the panel remotely. Using a live streaming application called "Live Stream," conference organizers of the Governor's Nonprofit Leadership Conference in Texas are hoping to draw in an online audience into the discussion about social innovation.

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Last Chance for First Round Office Hours in 2009!

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 12:29:37 PST

It's been a great year of meeting entrepreneurs here at First Round Capital , in no small part due to the community outreach we've been doing via our Office Hours program. (Hat Hat tip to Kent !) And as 2009 comes to a close, we've decided to slip in one last event. Because we're like that.

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Is Your Nonprofit Hitting the She Spot? Part 2

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 11:46:01 PST

Connect with giving circles and encourage your members to start their own. According to Wikipedia , giving circles are a form of philanthropy consisting of groups of individuals who pool their funds and other resources to donate to their communities and seek to increase their awar eness and engagement in the process of giving. Yesterday I made the case that women, not men, have become the most vital market segment to reach, not only for consumer brands but for nonprofit organizations seeking to change the world. I

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Adobe Youth Voices Seeks Work from Young Filmmakers

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 10:51:08 PST

Tags: Community Tech Centers Community Tech Centers Digital Divide Multimedia & Graphics Online Activism Services Software Using the Web and Interne Our partners at Adobe just let us know about Youth Producing Change , a search for films about human rights issues created by filmmakers under the age 19. Adobe Youth Voices is producing this event with Human Rights Watch, and the selected films will be screened around the world as part of HRW's film festival .

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A Random Act of Kindness Involving a Fruitcake

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 23:55:25 PST

Having built nine chapters and a community of over 300 committed not for – communities , transforming lives and strengthening economies. It's the holiday season! Sunday evening I had a great time at a holiday party, a potluck with Michael Pollan and PopTech faculty and fellows in the Bay Area hosted by Tracy Barba from Duarte Design . That's where I ran into Emily Pilloton, a PopTech Fellow, and

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Passports With Purpose: Travel Bloggers Helping Cambodia

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 22:53:47 PST

never knew what online community was before I was ensconced in what I used to call "the snow globe" and then, when I started to connect with other like minded expats I understood. And I knew, with absolute certainty that with the help of the travelblogging community , we would succeed. What is your fundraising strategy? This year, we sold sponsorships to a number of travel based companies -- Passports with Purpose (PwP) is a collaborative online fundraiser created created by four Seattle-based travel bloggers, returns for a second year

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Guest Post: The Denver Community Museum

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 12:41:00 PST

This post was written by Jaime Kopke , the founder/director of the Denver Community Museum , a pop-up community -generated institution that ran from Oct 2008-April 2009. The Denver Community Museum (DCM) was a grassroots operation in almost every sense. There was no agenda or angle in setting up the DCM, the idea was simply to create an awesome place for the community to share their stories. This post shares her reflections on the project, its design, and its impact. There was no budget, no staff, no permanent location, no Board of Directors and no collection.

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Jocelyn Harmon Joins Care2 as Director of Nonprofit Services

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 08:12:48 PST

Jocelyn has been a member of the capacity-building community for nonprofits since 2000. Increasing its dedication to helping nonprofits connect with over 12 million civically-active members in their online advocacy, fundraising and list growth, Care2 is pleased to announce the addition of Jocelyn Harmon as Director of Nonprofit Services. Jocelyn is passionate about helping charitable organizations and causes succeed online so that they can change the world.

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NCVO Ask the Expert: They asked me!

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 05:37:49 PST

We Are Media, a wiki-based community project curating resources about using social media in nonprofit organizations “How There are many different examples out there, ranging from small organization fundraising locally to organizations leveraging the global community for change. I’m looking forward to being a speaker this Tuesday (8 December) at the Seminar: Changing ICT – What does it mean for your organisation? put on by the NCVO.

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Reply Comments on the Proposed Treaty for Access to Copyrighted Works

Sat, 05 Dec 2009 09:06:00 PST

Most of this community doesn’t have access to formal education, most of this community doesn’t have access to jobs and most of this community isn’t recognized by larger society as equals. In 1996, the publishing industry and the disability community in the United States got together and agreed on an exemption to copyright to solve this problem. We filed the following comments to the Copyright Office's request for comments on issues about access for people with print disabilities. Background on this can be reviewed at the Knowledge Ecology International website.

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20 Lists of Holiday Gifts that Give Back

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 16:18:00 PST

encourage you to support the small, local nonprofits in your community with a gift donation. My friend Gabriela of One Love Alliance forwarded me an email today from Slow Family Living that said: "Remember? It's supposed to be Comfort and Joy. Not stress and overwhelm.

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Easy Online Raffles for UK Nonprofits

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 08:20:00 PST

Raffles are a time-honored way for small nonprofits, churches, clubs, schools, and other good causes to raise funds at the community level. Now, Raffle.it offers UK nonprofits a fun, free, and easy way to raise funds through online raffles....( read more ) ...Tags:

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30 Hour Day: Livestreaming for Fundraising

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 02:57:37 PST

Tags: community fundraising 30hourday freegeek interview portland vide 30 Hour Day is a cockamamie scheme concocted by Cami Kaos of Strange Love Live and Rick Turoczy of Silicon Florist . The concept? Livestream for 30 hours straight in an effort to raise money for charities like Free Geek, Oregon Food Bank, and Toys for Tots.

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Catching the Wave: Social Media and Nonprofits

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 15:57:05 PST

These days I mostly measure 2 things 1) how good are we at getting our community to join/talk w each other for mission 2)how good are we at helping people prevent, prepare for and respond to emergencies? Catching the Wave View more presentations from kanter . Today I had the pleasure of giving a presentation for the

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Handmade Nation: Watch It, Gift It, Love It!

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 14:28:00 PST

It is also available on DVD from buyolympia.com and Amazon . Whether you identify with the people profiled in the film's desire to create, be independent, work sustainably, make a living as an artist, preserve a craft, or find community , I think you'll be inspired by the film's end. In 2006, filmmaker Faythe Levine traveled 19,000+ miles visiting over 15 cities, and interviewing more than 50 indie artists, crafters, and designers. The result is a fun, fabulous documentary that recently came out on DVD, Handmade Nation: The Rise of DIY, Art, Craft, and Design.

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NTEN Member Appreciation Grand Prize Drawing: Winner Announced

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 12:18:37 PST

NetCorps have been members of NTEN for several years, and we thank them for their work and their contribution to the nonprofit technology community . ...Tags: Last month, as part of the daily NTEN Member Appreciation prizes, I announced that we'd be adding a new Grand Prize drawing this year, and NTEN members who renewed for 2010 before December 1st were automatically entered into the drawing to win a grand prize that includes: NTEN Gear from our CafePress store

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Social Media in the Board Room

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 11:47:49 PST

You can learn more about that in a new book from O'Reilly, called " The Art of Community : Building the New Age of Participation " by Jono Bacon . Photo by Beth A few months ago, I wrote about a report from Charlene Li that discovered that deep engagement with social media correlates with financial performance.

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Ten Things Nonprofits May Not Know About MySpace [But I Wish They Did]

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 07:14:40 PST

When I first started myspace.com/nonprofitorganizations almost 4 years ago I had no idea that it would evolve to become as large as it has, or that the brand/ community /concept would spread to Facebook , then YouTube , and now Twitter . And for that, I will be eternally grateful to MySpace and the “Nonprofit Organizations” MySpace community . As I spent the Thanksgiving weekend pondering gratitude, MySpace made the top of my list of things to be grateful for. If it were not for MySpace, my professional life no doubt would be much less fulfilling.

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Great reads from around the web on December 2nd

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 06:00:09 PST

8217; – Jonathan Waddingham from JustGiving has a great post up today: "The advent of Facebook fan pages has been great news for brands wanting to create communities without having to build their own social network. In many cases, it’s largely pointless trying to create your own community when the people you want to attract are already part of another one… But what do you do with your fans once you’ve got them?" I come across so many great conversations, ideas, and resources across the web ever day. Here are some of the most interesting things I’ve

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Things We Like (November 2009)

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 08:24:56 PST

The NTEN community : you folks rock . A monthly roundup of our favorite nonprofit tech resources. Read more posts on our blog . The James Irving Foundation has published a terrific report: " Convergence: How Five Trends Will Reshape the Social Sector " (PDF). Feuds.

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NetWits Know-How Event Fundraising Webinar Series

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 07:07:00 PST

15 at 2 pm ET Exploring cross-channel recruitment strategies, email collection efforts, offline data management, using online tools, and developing better online event communities Blackbaud is offering a free online event fundraising web seminar series from Dec. 14 to 18 to help nonprofits run successful online events.

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Four Conferences Online Organizers Should Attend

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:29:39 PST

If you work in the labor or the community organizing world, your mission is to meet your constituents when and where they need you. Unconference in DC will lead a series of sessions and conversations about using social media to create networked communities and movements. Conference season is gearing up. With so many conferences to choose from and ranges in ticket prices, it can be overwhelming to decide which conferences to attend.

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Free Webinar: Assistive Technology for Public Computers

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 11:03:58 PST

Tags: Accessible Technology Community Tech Centers Digital Divid Are you concerned about creating computer access for everyone? If so, you may want to consider using assistive technology . Not sure what this is or how it's applicable to a public computer setting?

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And the Winner(s) of the Social Media Library Are ....

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 11:50:03 PST

It's been my bible for community and relationship building. community organizing, pro bono legal assistance, housing assistance, fuel Johanna Bates, who has worked for a community organization in Massachusetts that will close its doors at the end of year, will venture in the world of consulting. Johanna Bates is one of the smartest nonprofit technologists out Earlier this month, I participated in a social media library giveaway organized by Steve Cunningham , who like me, loves books. He writes a blog called " Read It To Me " that summarizes business books and also hosts

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Social Innovation Camp at MPS09

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 06:35:55 PST

What I’m suggesting is 2 things: first, giving all the advice yourself is not efficient or entirely valuable, so you should grow a community around the ideas where they connect; and second, the advice you need as a radically new group/project is very different as there aren’t models or examples, so the only way these projects will work is by changing behavior… How comfortable we are with meeting people offline we only know online, how we share personal data, etc. Set targets and help to accelerate project development and build community . I’m capturing notes at the MyPublicServices event from PatientOpinion .

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GIft Economies at MPS09

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 05:01:41 PST

What is it about the health community that’s different? For example, PatientOpinion’s community could operate very different if it was a for-profit company instead of a nonprofit organization. I’m capturing notes at the MyPublicServices event from PatientOpinion . This session is lead by Paul Hodgkin from PatientOpinion .

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Harnessing and Nurturing Communities at MPS09

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 04:19:59 PST

This session is lead by Holly Seddon from FreshNetworks and titled Harnessing and Nurturing Communities . Head of Community Management at FreshNetworks, previously at iVillage, Daily Mail etc.; What do we mean by “ community ” – question asked to the participants: I’m capturing notes at the MyPublicServices event from PatientOpinion . Use the tag #MPS09 to follow conversations and highlights from others at the event.

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TechSoup Closed for Thanksgiving: Will Reopen Monday!

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 14:12:22 PST

We'll be giving thanks for some much-needed days off and will pick up our blog updates, community activities, new webinars, regular newsletters, and donation fulfillment requests upon our return to work on Monday. In honor of the U.S. celebration of the Thanksgiving holiday , TechSoup's San Francisco offices will be closed tomorrow and Friday. Our

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Great reads from around the web on November 25th

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 04:00:25 PST

E-Commerce News: Customer Loyalty: If You Build a Branded Online Community , Will Customers Come? – "Despite the enormous popularity of peer-to-peer social networking, the adoption cycle for branded online communities has been relatively slow. That a growing number of consumer brands are transforming their existing static Web sites into interactive online communities is a trend that is not only recent, but also rapidly accelerating." I come across so many great conversations, ideas, and resources across the web ever day. Here are some of the most interesting

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Social Media Staff Guides: Another Example

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 03:29:48 PST

The “nptech” (or nonprofit technology) community is one of the best networks when it comes to sharing ideas and case studies, so here’s another example to add to the lot! >> Timo Luege recently shared the new social media staff guidelines created at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). Creating staff guidelines specific to online or social media use in organizations has been a hot topic for the last year or so and many organizations rely on examples of what other organizations or companies have created as a starting place

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Five Social Media Fundraising Trends for 2009

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 23:20:36 PST

The March of Dimes community rallied to raise money in Maddie's memory, unleashing a groundswell of support and sympathy expressions. Minnesotans to give and help create a stronger nonprofit community for Minnesota, Ammado has recently launched a new take on peer-to-peer fundraising called giving circles and giving communities that nonprofits should keep an eye on. Photo by Borman818 I

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Messages, Stories, and Conversations: Creating a Strategy for your organization and your supporters

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:26:32 PST

Tags: resources strategy community conversation lists socialmedi I have said it many, many times and so have lots of others—you’re probably tired of hearing about how social media is supposed to be “a conversation.” 8221; And that’s okay! Because it isn’t JUST a conversation!

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Ready or Not, Here I Chrome

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 10:14:27 PST

As the details of Chrome have materialized, some interesting possibilities for the nonprofit community have emerged. Two weeks ago, the tech world was abuzz with a rumor that Google's Chrome OS would be launching not in late 2010 as originally announced, but this month . My response was a bemused "Yeah right," but it turns out there was some truth to it.

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Invention, Technology and Social Change: What’s driving you?

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 09:34:07 PST

They “work with the urban poor, particularly women in informal settlements to facilitate, and provide technical support to, community -managed housing (slum rehabilitation) and infrastructure projects.” I hope that we can actively co-create a global community that is more just and sustainable where innovations aren’t driven by social change needs. I was interviewed recently by Petra Kroon , a blogger focused on social media and entrepreneurship in The Netherlands, in which she asked some really great questions, including what I thought the trend would be for social entrepreneurship in 2010 as well as where we may be in 25 years.

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Great reads from around the web on November 24th

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 09:00:07 PST

34;Our latest feature is a global rapid response community we launched last month, called ClimateInsider. New Start Magazine: The toolkit for practitioners in regeneration, economic development & sustainable communities – "New Start is the toolkit for regeneration practitioners. Tags: roundup activism bookmarks climatechange community communitybuilder development engagement fundraising interviews list magazine news nonprofits nptech philanthropy postalicious I come across so many great conversations, ideas, and resources across the web ever day. Here are some

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Diversity—More Than Ethnicity & Age

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 14:54:37 PST

Would you consider your volunteers diverse enough to reflect the various communities in your service area? We began to identify different “ communities ” in Waco in preparation to reaching out to them in order to recruit volunteers and to expand our presence and visibility. We defined a community as a group of people with similar interests. Does your nonprofit need volunteers? Does it need both governance volunteers and those who actually implement the programs?

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Twitiquette

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 08:06:00 PST

The priority of any particular message can be set by each persons community that they tune into. If you want to spread the word on Twitter or Facebook, focus on the message, not the media, and let the community carry it for you, if they agree that it's worthy. ...Tags: Social networks provide nonprofits with great opportunities to raise awareness , just as they offer individuals more opportunities to be diagnosed with information overload syndrome . To my mind, the value of tools like Twitter and Facebook are not only that they increase my ability to communicate with

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Bookshare to Convert Open Content Textbooks to Accessible Formats

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 06:05:00 PST

One of the coolest meetings was with Under Secretary of Education, Martha Kanter, who headed our local community college here in California before getting the appointment. She and her senior policy adviser, Hal Plotkin, are huge fans of Open Educational Resources (OERs), having been involved in starting that movement in community colleges. Our new announcement about the Department granting Bookshare supplemental funding to convert open content textbooks to accessible formats went over very well. Just spent a week in Washington DC doing all kinds of things, including actual lobbying (it's fun!)

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Showcase Your Members' Videos with YouTube Direct

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 02:30:00 PST

online community Non-profit Communications websites Videos crowdsourcing YouTub What if you could display a playlist of member-created videos on your non-profit's website, just like the big mainstream news media websites? YouTube Direct makes it easy....( read more ) ...Tags:

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Inflection Point

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 12:21:34 PST

Holistic, collaborative, community -based change. Dreamforce is a 4 day software user conference. It’s easy to look at it from afar and see only that–money to be made, customers to retain, sales to be won. And it’s absolutely true that Dreamforce is about all of that.

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2009 Member Appreciation: Mission Video Webinar Contest Winners!

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:10:21 PST

Those who attended the webinar had a chance to show the community what they learned. For those of you who missed it, last week we held a Member Appreciation Webinar with Basho Mosko from the Flip Video Spotlight Program and Michael Hoffman from See3 Communications about how to create an introductory video for your organization. Those They posted a wide variety of inspirational, funny, and just plain well made videos as examples of what they learned.

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Five Ways Social Media is Helping to Build Social Justice Movements

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:16:47 PST

Here are the top five ways building a community on social networking sites benefits nonprofits advocating for social change. Now many of these discussions are also taking place in large communities filled with millions of people – and often times with people who have never even met in person before. As with all popular communications channels, sometimes social media gets a bad rep. While it's true that social media is not a silver bullet for major list growth or mega fundraising yet, it is helping to strengthen social justice movements.

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Record Your Grandma's Stories: StoryCorps' National Day of Listening is Nov. 27

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:13:00 PST

StoryCorps provides a free, downloadable Do-It-Yourself Instruction Guide , as well as an Education Toolkit to use in a classroom or library, and a Community Service Toolkit to use in, "veteran’s hospitals, senior centers, homeless shelters, and other community centers." Will you be spending Thanksgiving with friends who tell great stories, a relative who has wonderful tales from "back in the day," or just someone special whose life you'd like to celebrate? Why not record their story in honor of StoryCorps' National Day of Listening the day after Thanksgiving (November 27th).

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Causes and Ideablob: Who Owns Your Social Networking Data?

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:58:00 PST

The fact that access to data, whether it’s supporters’ email addresses, tracking actions taken, or anything else, is instantly gone should be a big alert bell to those working in a "networked" way via social media to grow their community. Continuing on last week's discussion about Causes leaving MySpace, TechSoup's own Amy has written an interesting guest post on Sean Stannard-Stockton's Tactical Philanthropy blog. Amy discusses the Causes fallout as well as Ideablob's sudden disappearance .

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Flip Video Spotlight and See3 Present “Mission Video” Webinar

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:08:13 PST

They designed these custom Flip “trophies” for the 2009 DoGooderTV Nonprofit Video Awards, and they’re continually demonstrating their commitment to providing necessary digital resources to the nonprofit community . We’ve really enjoyed getting to know the folks at Flip Video Spotlight . So when Basho Mosko, Program Manager at Flip Video Spotlight, asked us to co-present with him for NTEN’s “Mission Video” webinar, we couldn’t resist.

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Innovation is alive and well

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:11:26 PST

As we conclude our 10th Anniversary, I want to thank our clients, partners and the nonprofit community as a whole for your support, insight and acceptance of Convio - it has led to our mutual success. Author: Gene Austin My “batteries” are almost back to 100 percent after the Convio Summit . What a fantastic week with our clients and partners

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Have Fun Do Good Day: 29-Day Giving Challenge

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:08:00 PST

You can join the 29 Day Giving Challenge online community at www.29gifts.org , and download free 29 Gifts calendar and 29 Gifts Note Cards in their discussion forum. Long time readers of Have Fun Do Good probably already know about the 29 Day Giving Challenge created by my friend, Cami Walker. During the 29 Day Giving Challenge, you give away one thing each day for 29 days.

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This Twitter Fundraisers, Next Year FourSquare Fundraisers ....

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 04:37:00 PST

This is a great way to give.” TechiesGiveBack.org is dedicated to unifying the New York tech industry for the purpose of improving the local community through volunteering and fundraising. Co-founder Adam Gillman said today, "We believe that there are a lot of talented individuals in the tech community who are willing and able to give back, but just need an outlet. Today, Pete Cashmore had a piece on CNN " Next Year's Twitter? Foursquare " predicting that FourSquare will be the darling of 2010.

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Giving on Facebook

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:19:11 PST

new program is going live today called the Chase Community Giving Program , between Chase and Facebook. For the first time ever, Facebook users will be able to choose from more than 500,000 small and local charities to decide which community organizations they want to receive donations totaling millions of dollars from a corporate philanthropy fund. · Facebook users, now totaling more than 300 million, will be able to vote for which small and local non profits will receive donations totaling $5 million · The eligible charity receiving the most votes will be awarded $1 million,

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Three Different Approaches to Twitter Fundraising: Bees, Turkeys, and Blame

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:21:12 PST

In 2009, it has evolved to incorporate a networked approach and there are even platforms or communities of people dedicated to click action philanthropy, including Every Wun . community feedback) and use Twitter to drive awareness for it. TweetsGiving 2009 If the dollar amounts from fundraising campaigns using social networks are disappointing, one response is to say this doesn't work and stop doing it.

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2009 Member Appreciation: Daily Member Prize Winner for 11/19

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 07:49:26 PST

One thing we're really proud of here at NTEN is the knowledge of the community and the generosity within the community to share that knowledge with each other so that we can all do our work better, which in turn, we believe, makes the world better. This This last year we were able to harness that community wisdom and generosity and produce the first NTEN book: Managing Technology to Meet Your Mission: A Strategic Guide for Nonprofit Leaders . I I am happy to be able to give a copy of this book as one of our Member Appreciation daily prizes to:

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Quick – Test Me

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 07:26:59 PST

You upload your design, and then you can either invite specific users to test it, or you can open your test to the entire 5 second community. And if you open up your design to the entire five second community , you’re likely not getting results from an average-joe user, but usability and design experts. Testing a Web site is a pretty big, and not often inexpensive, task. Cara already posted about some inexpensive tools for user-testing wireframes .

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Fab Lab and Do-It-Yourself Infrastructure Building

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:10:59 PST

The organization behind the antennas is Fab Lab , an international network of community workshops. Originally an MIT project with a meager National Science Foundation grant, Fab Labs are becoming important resources in some of the most troubled communities on the planet. Through projects like the Wi-Fi antennas, Fab Labs empower citizens to play an active role in building and rebuilding their communities . Here's a photo of a directional antenna that can transmit Wi-Fi Internet several miles. Anyone can build one with materials from a hardware store; you can even download

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Dreamforce day 1 report

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:56:52 PST

The nonprofit Salesforce community rocks. I could be watching a Black Crowes concert right now at the Moscone Center. Instead, I’m back in my tiny hotel room looking forward to spending the rest of the evening knitting on Laini’s sweater while watching Glee . Much better plan.

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GiveMN Raises $14 Million Online in 24 Hours!

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:01:59 PST

0160; GiveMN a new online resource that hopes to encourage more Minnesotans to give and help create a stronger nonprofit community for Minnesota. This was among the key findings of the “ Community Philanthropy 2.0,” conducted by Geoff Livingston (he is a Society for New Communications Research Fellow), Qui Diaz and myself. Match Days have been used by community I think I want to change Garrison Keillor's well known descriptor of Lake Wobegone. 0160; It goes "Minnesota from"where all the women are strong,

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Museums, Church, and Doable Evangelism

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:20:00 PST

Is it the "mission" of cultural professionals to help people connect to what we see as positive personal and community outcomes, and if so, how should we go about it? Instead, Jim and his compatriots focus on being good Christians, connecting with other people in real relationships free of artifice, and hopefully, enriching community members' lives with the evidence of their own faith. Make it clear that your I often think museums are like church--passionately loved by staff and devout audiences, irrelevant or off-putting to lapsed or uninterested adults, alien and overwhelming to newcomers.

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2009 NTEN Community Report -- And 2010 NTC Winner

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:08:21 PST

Every year we survey the nonprofit technology community (via our members, program participants, and other like- communities ) to learn two main things: Tags: Budget community Leadership NTEN Plannin How are WE doing , as an organization, to make your work easier, and your mission a little closer? How are YOU doing , as someone who works with technology and/or the nonprofit sector, in terms of your job role, tech-adoption, and organizational challenges? Earlier

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Great reads from around the web on November 18th

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:19:11 PST

Powered by John Haydon – John Haydon has an excellent post today to get you thinking more strategically about your use of social media, and not just what tools to use but what to say once you're using them! "When most businesses and non-profits start using social media, they start with “small talk” with their communities. But all to often, they fail to move beyond the “small talk” and create meaningful discussions that their communities are dying to have." I come across so many great conversations, ideas, and resources across the web ever day.

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Tis the Season for Creativity in Holiday/Year-end Giving – Share your gift opportunity here

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:10:54 PST

Most importantly the gift you give to the person you love support causes that feed, protect and care for children, the poor and the homeless, protect wildlife and the environment, educate and enrich our communities and make a difference in the lives of millions of people – that is the true spirit of the season. Author: Tad Druart With the Holiday Giving season ramping and the recession having a negative impact on donations, charities are expanding their eCommerce offerings to better meet consumer’s needs.

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It’s conference week! Dreamforce and Convio Summit

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 06:35:00 PST

just feel more connected to the Salesforce nonprofit user community. There are only 3 conferences I make a point of going to each year if I can: Convio Summit , Salesforce Dreamforce and NTEN NTC . Wouldn’t you know that this year, Convio Summit and Dreamforce were the same week? Originally, I was only going to go to Dreamforce.

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Online Alumni Communities in the Age of Social Media

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:50:11 PST

The topic of closed alumni communities versus social media is on the minds of a lot of university staff, so I'm posting this along with my response. I'd like to hear from anyone who is using the social networking function of Blackbaud Net Community . We are purchasing Net Community for some of the other things it offers, and we're trying to decide if we should pursue social networking through it or use Facebook, etc. I received the following email from a listerve. What we see as a benefit is the thought that perhaps using the Net Community , it might be a little more

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Schools using social media but not for fundraising

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 12:11:15 PST

Social Media was a big topic this year, with workshop titles like "Maximizing Social Networks and Online Resources in Alumni Relations", "Now That Facebook and Twitter Aren't Enough: Integrating Social Media into Your Advancement Toolkit ", and "Making Community Real in a Virtual World". I spent the last 3 days at the CASE District VII conference, for schools in AZ, CA, Guam, HI, NV, and UT. Speakers and attendees reported heavy use of Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, Twitter, and YouTube (the few times I heard mentions of MySpace were negative).

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Member Spotlight: Ashley Messick of Faith in Practice and Blood Centers of the Pacific

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 11:15:38 PST

also work part-time, remotely doing social media for Blood Centers of the Pacific (BCP), the community blood center in the San Francisco/Bay Area. Faith in Practice won an Honorable Mention in the Digital Storytelling Online Challenge for their Flickr story submission . I got a chance to connect with

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Facebook, Chase Team Up for Crowdsourced Philanthropy Program | Sustainability | Fast Company

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 11:02:00 PST

That's the thinking behind the Chase Community Giving Program, a new app that allows users to choose from over 500,000 charities to decide which get cash from Chase' Facebook, Chase Team Up for Crowdsourced Philanthropy Program | Sustainability | Fast Company: "Instead of just writing trite wall posts and playing FarmVille, what if Facebook users could be directed towards doing good deeds?

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6 Governments Who Set Their Data Free

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 10:45:00 PST

communities (and readers of this blog) have heard about the federal government's Data.gov initiative (and the winner of a certain Apps for America competition using these data sets). We're seeing exciting trends in governments making data more available ? and valuable ? for the public.

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Open Government: "Strategies and Tactics from the Playbook"

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 09:25:00 PST

communities of interest on specific topics. Some Federal agencies are experimenting with fascinating approaches to public engagement online, even in the absence of specific guidance about how they should approach these online opportunities. These These are the themes I heard while attending the interesting Open Government: "Strategies and Tactics from the Playbook" event this past Monday in DC, organized by the team of Lucas Cioffi , Stephen Buckley , and Kaliya Hamlin . They

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2009 Member Appreciation: Daily Member Prize Winner for 11/17

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 07:14:15 PST

Thank you for being a member of NTEN, Susan, and, considering your organization and cause, perhaps there are some new ways you can engage and educate the community about Historic Preservation -- and who knows, maybe someday Second Life will be among the communities and places your organization strives to preserve! ...Tags: With all the buzz about Twitter and Facebook Causes over the last year, I feel like the focus on Second Life for nonprofit organizations and causes has diminished a bit. But there are organizations and resources for nonprofits who are and want

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I Live Here, I Give Here: Place-Based Charitable Giving Hubs

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:47:53 PST

I've been noticing a social media spin on making charitable donations in your community , regional, or state. Minnesotans to give and help create a stronger nonprofit community for Minnesota. According to the site: Austin is no doubt a caring community. Chase's Give to the Max in Minnesota Day Here's three recent examples.

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Changes to the Google Grants Process

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 18:32:50 PST

I'm happy to share with the NTEN community a major change in the Google Kristie Ferketich, Google Grants Team I'm Google Grants process designed to improve the experience for prospective prospective Google Grantees. This This change will allow new grantees to

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Great reads from around the web on November 16th

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:37:57 PST

JPMorgan Chase: Chase and Facebook Launch Innovative Giving Program for Small and Local Charities – "For the first time ever, Facebook®: users will be able to choose from more than 500,000 small and local charities to decide which community organizations they want to receive donations totaling millions of dollars from a corporate philanthropy fund. Chase and Facebook today announced the launch of Chase Community Giving: You Decide What Matters, a grassroots campaign to inspire a new way of corporate philanthropy." I come across so many great conversations, ideas, and resources across the web ever day.

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GreenPeace: An Example in Connecting with your Supporters

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:35:28 PST

Community : Remember that using social media platforms is all about going where your community already is and making supporting your work part of the process they already have online. Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about the issues highlighted by Causes leaving MySpace and ideablob suddenly shutting down. One of the biggest issues that has come out of the blog posts and the conversations in the comments is the idea of data.

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TweetsGiving: Show Your Gratitude With Epic Change

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:53:23 PST

People donate to a shared cause in honor of that for which they are most grateful Funds raised will go to support the work of Mama Lucy Kampton ( @MamaLucy ), a ChangeMaker who has transformed her community in Arusha, Tanzania through her school Shepherd’s Junior . Join the TweetsGiving Community ...Tags: There’s just one week before TweetsGiving ! Next week, participants will share what they are grateful for through Twitter and other online media and attend gratitude parties around the world.

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Guest Post on Tactical Philanthropy: Causes, MySpace and ideablob

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 10:58:27 PST

But to many people active in online social action communities , these events had deeper meaning. This is a guest post from Amy Sample Ward, NetSquared’s Global Community Development Manager.” We can see (and learn a valuable lesson about) the way current ecosystem of social media works in regards to transparency, data, and community . Sean Stannard-Stockton has just posted my guest post on the Tactical Philanthropy blog . You can read it and the comments on the blog here , it’s copied below. “In

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One of Many: A Series Spotlighting Our Member Organizations

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 10:32:46 PST

want each post to be a small story about the organization and how they've succeeded in bettering their communities . Interested nonprofits or libraries can send me an email through my TechSoup Community profile . How have technology donations from TechSoup helped your organization achieve a specific goal or benefited your community ? I'll start off with an introduction — I'm not new to TechSoup, but I'm new to the TechSoup Blog. I've been working as a web content developer for TechSoup for a little over a year, writing content for our catalog of products each time we

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The Right Way to use Social Media for Fundraising: Wildlife Direct

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 20:05:05 PST

Richard Leakey. According to Paula Kahumbu, Executive Director, their approach to fundraising was to build a worldwide online conservancy community . Paula Kahumbu, Wildlife Direct and PopTech Fellow 09 Last week I wrote about a pair of surveys that looked at social media and nonprofits. One came to the conclusion that social media was a waste of time; the other talked

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Accessibility and ACTA

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 18:33:00 PST

Brief Comments on Accessibility Concerns on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) The disability community should be concerned about ACTA for two reasons: At its core it’s an anti-piracy agreement. The digital measures designed to defeat piracy usually end up equating accessibility with piracy. The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is being negotiated in secret.

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Five Simple Ways Nonprofits Can Measure Social Media ROI (Return on Investment)

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 14:55:38 PST

Are you building community on Twitter or just pushing out press releases and blog posts [that in time people start to ignore]? Do you have an account on Bit.ly to make sure that the links you are posting are actually interesting to your Twitter community? think 1-4 are much more important than this, but plotting your fans, followers and friends on an Excel spreadsheet will at least give you a sense of how quickly or slowly your social media communities Last week a study came out that said small to medium sized nonprofits were not gaining much from using social media. I

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Twibbon: A Twitter Tool That Puts a Ribbon on Your Profile

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 11:11:29 PST

My friend, Manny Hernandez, founder of Tuiabetes Community and author of Ning for Dummies, let me know that today, November 14 is World Diabetes Day . Today, at 14:00 hours (local time), time), thousands of people with diabetes will test their blood sugar, do do

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Marnie Webb on Stretching the Broadband Stimulus

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 14:57:29 PST

Tags: Acquiring Technology Community Tech Centers Digital Divide Grants for Technology Tech Plannin Check out this short interview Kim Hart of The Hill conducted with TechSoup CEO Marnie Webb. Marnie's been in Washington this week talking about how best to leverage the new broadband stimulus grants on behalf of underserved populations. ... Webb admits she is naive to the ways of Washington.

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TechSoup's a Nonprofit: Here's How We Work

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 10:54:51 PST

I've spent my whole adult career working for nonprofits that I believe do pretty darn good jobs of serving the needs of their communities , providing valuable services, advocating and educating on behalf of important policy decisions, and do all around good work for the world. A couple of weeks back, I wrote a post to address some frequently asked questions about Windows 7 that opened with a plea for patience and understanding as our customer service reps work to dig out for the overwhelming demand for the new operating system. I'm gonna take a minute to expand on that request a bit.

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Love is in the Air: A Wrap-Up of the First NTEN Thanks Day

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 10:46:37 PST

Community Fun Taken together, they make NTEN sound like a supportive and positive community to be a part of -- which we knew, but it means so much to us to know that you all think so, too. And The NTEN staff is consistently amazed at how fabulous our members are. But honestly, last Wednesday, on NTEN Give Thanks day, you really blew our minds.

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NTEN's Ask the Expert With Seth Godin: My Notes and Takeaways

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 09:12:21 PST

In turn, I suggested that we have a conversation with the nonprofit technology community with Holly Ross at NTEN as host. Yesterday, NTEN;s Holly Ross hosted an online conversation with Seth Godin and me, along with Roxy Allen and 100 plus NTEN members. These " Ask the Expert " chats take place on the phone with a online chat back channel.

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2009 Member Appreciation: Daily Member Prize Winner for 11/13

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 08:04:02 PST

Mitch Ashley , from the Peninsula Jewish Community Center (PJCC) , is going to receive a free webinar voucher for an NTEN webinar, just for being the lucky, randomly-selected NTEN member to receive our thanks! And Flickr: gynti_46 I've always been one of those people who thinks the number 13, and those special Fridays that fall on the 13th (like today!) are actually lucky.

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Ideablob says “Goodbye”

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 02:41:54 PST

It’s pretty cool and it’s a fast growing community of really bright entrepreneurs. Tags: community issues challenges competitions shutdown socialmedi For the last week, there’s been a rich discussion about Causes and the way that it abruptly, without much notice, left MySpace (deleting all of the related content, connections, communications, etc.). (To To dive into the conversations about Causes, visit my earlier post , or posts by Marshall Kirkpatrick , Ivan Boothe , Beth Kanter , and Joe Solomon .)

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Ideablob says “Goodbye”

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 02:41:54 PST

Social by Social: A Guide to Launching Campaigns Via New Media Tools

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 18:31:20 PST

Nonprofits and their staff will learn to engage a community , develop a blog strategy, define key metrics, scale up activities and sustain projects via the latest tools. Nonprofit guru Amy Sample Ward just co-authored a new book called Social By Social , which serves as a great “how to” guide on how to use technologies to create social impact. Furthermore, Social By Social document pioneers like Simon Berry who used new media to successfully lobby the Coca Cola Corporation to support African aid. “This

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Causes Leaves MySpace: Should We Care?

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 11:45:49 PST

In a sense, the news isn't that surprising (being a for-profit company , Causes must focus on platforms generating the most commercial interest), but it's raised a lot of questions about how closely the nonprofit community aligns itself with commercial tools. The access debate aside, the removal of Causes from MySpace where there are active communities of supporters means 'equal opportunity activism' is defined by only certain communities ." There's been a lot of discussion over the past week about Causes leaving MySpace and becoming a Facebook-only application. My colleague

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Impact of Social Media on the Nonprofit Sector

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 09:06:59 PST

Nonprofits can tap into that to engage their community , and the networks of each of those community members. Be active in the communities that are discussing metrics to help shape the future. Flickr Photo: clevercupcakes I recently got an email from an NYU graduate student in Public Relations, Paola Christina Lamarca . She's working on her Capstone and wanted to hear a few of my opinions about the impact of social media on the nonprofit sector.

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Lou Dobbs quits CNN

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 07:42:09 PST

Lovato said the BastaDobbs.com victory marks a key turning point for the Latino community , as it moved from marching in the streets in 2006 to mounting a successful, high-tech campaign against one of the biggest and strongest media voices against common-sense immigration reform. “The 8220;The community is newly empowered and energized, and we are ready to fight for a respectful and civil media discourse when it comes to immigration coverage on mainstream news,” Lovato said. “This The big news in the media today is that Lou Dobbs has quit CNN. Mobile Commons

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Social by Social Game at Chain Reaction 09

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 04:30:55 PST

Today, David Wilcox and I will be running a version of the Social by Social game at the Chain Reaction event in London … which promises to be a terrific 400-strong gathering of community activists, policy people, business leaders, with a few Cabinet Ministers too. The game will be similar in form to those you’ll find here : we’ll invent a place, break into groups around some social challenges or themes, then use sets of cards to plan how to engage people, choose social media tools, and work out how to fund the package. However, although the format is pretty standard, I’m sure the ideas

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Social by Social Game at Chain Reaction 09

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 04:30:55 PST

Free Webinar November 18: Tech Training Made Simple with Online Videos

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 14:28:10 PST

We will also hear how librarians are using these videos to support the needs of their community . Tags: Community Tech Centers Digital Divide E-Learning E-Learning Online Seminar Training Trainin Wouldn't it be great if complicated technology concepts were explained in a simple way that's easy to understand? Imagine how something like this could assist you in training sessions for patrons or staff.

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What's an Email Address Worth? Just Calculate it!

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:23:35 PST

community , mission fulfillment, and branding. The Value of an Email What’s an email worth? Over here at Care2 we get this question a lot. And we should. Any nonprofit seeking to recruit online supporters should rightly be concerned with the ultimate value derived from such supporters.

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The Rockport Pilot > News > County commissioners approve ‘day of giving’

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 11:09:00 PST

The Rockport Pilot > News > County commissioners approve ‘day of giving’: "“Whereas it is recognized that charitable contributions to nonprofit charitable organizations are an important factor in improving the quality of life in the community by providing a safety net for those most vulnerable and at risk.“Whereas, Whereas, Aransas County wishes to encourage and broaden philanthropy, charitable giving an

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Can Small Nonprofits Reap Success With Social Media? (Giving away a copy of Twitter for Dummies)

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:31:28 PST

Cindy's nonprofit teaches kids and adults to knit hats and sweaters for less fortunate people in their community . So, if your thinking that social media is just for corporate giants and fancy flash web sites to support national campaigns or chains and has no value if you doing work in your local community - think again. Be like Cindy Williams and give it a try. Leave a comment sharing how you're using social media to support your organization's work With the big holiday charitable giving season just around the corner, there's a host of cause-related giving campaigns waiting in software launch and nonprofits gearing up for their end-of-the-year efforts.

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Data Driven Campaigns

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:50:00 PST

Our movements need to really connect and track data and contribute to community and allies understanding of the data. Data at work in a defined context. Time from 7:30 to 8:40 is amazing on the evolution of data enhancements and traffic mapping of engagement with the voters. Important ideas in any organizing context...

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ASTC Recap: Questions, Colors, and Reflective Research

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:19:00 PST

We so frequently over-focus on our own institutions' problems, and Jane and her cohorts in Pittsburgh are thinking much more expansively about their collective power to make positive change in their community . Bridging Online and Onsite Experiences Tamara Schwarz (Chabot Space & Science Center), Seth! IMLS also wanted to help museums and libraries improve their skills, both for audiences and for their own professional communities. Last week, the Association of Science and Technology Centers (ASTC) held their annual meeting in Ft. Worth, Texas.

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Playing the Social Media Game with 100 Bay Area Nonprofits

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:45:30 PST

It worked, but the strategy framework itself needs to be rethought. The first iteration of the strategy cards consisted only of online approaches and was scaled based on amount of time (listening, participate, share story, generate buzz, and online community building). Compasspoint Workshop Slides - Beta View more presentations from kanter .

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Are you getting the most out of your matching gifts? Guest post by Stephen Hafner

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:59:32 PST

Every year as we approach the end of the year and holiday giving season, millions of Americans give to charities hoping to have a positive impact on the communities where they live and work. Author: Tad Druart I'm honored to share this space today with Stephen Hafner of HEP Development Services. Stephen shares some insight and ideas - and an offer - around matching gifts.

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Same crap, different day

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:45:41 PST

Annoyed because it seems the nptech community hasn’t figured this out, even being hit over the head with this over, and over, and over again. I’m warning you – this is snarky. I was only vaguely following the brou-ha-ha over Causes leaving Myspace.

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Why Geeks (like me) Promote Transparency

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 07:57:00 PST

By jointly assessing and learning from the wealth of information that we, as a community of practice collect, we can be far more effective. Public Domain image by Takada Last week, I shared a lengthy piece that could be summed up as: "in a world where everyone can broadcast anything, there is no privacy, so transparency is your best defense." (Mind you, we'd be dropping a number of nuanced points to do that!) Transparency, it turns out, has been a bit of a meme in nonprofit blogging circles lately . I

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Now Nonprofits Outside the U.S. and Canada Can Fundraise on Facebook Too

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 02:33:26 PST

You can add a summary of your organization, photos, post news and articles, join/create communities , etc. That said, Ammado’s giving circles and giving communities are a pretty slick new take on peer-to-peer fundraising that supporters/creators can also embed on their Facebook and Bebo profiles: Since the popular Facebook fundraising App Causes was built using GuideStar’s database of nonprofits in the United States and Canada, only nonprofits in the U.S. and Canada can utilize Causes’ fundraising tools.

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Member Spotlight: Christopher Worman of the Odorheiu Secuiesc Community Foundation

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 23:48:49 PST

had a chance to connect with our third place winner , Christopher Worman , Executive Director of the Odorheiu Secuiesc Community Foundation , to learn more about this TechSoup Global organization. We had Digital Storytelling Challenge winners from around the globe! I read more ...Tags:

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Causes Ditches MySpace: Don't Put All Your Fundraising Relationship Eggs in One Third Party, Proprietary Basket!

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:17:16 PST

Amy's post spoke about the implications for individuals and communities , raising the question - " In abandoning MySpace, is Causes abandoning nonprofit groups organizing online with poorer users and people of color?" Justin Mass went as far as to say that the move was " social network redlining ." One wonders if this provides an opportunity for another fundraising and friendraising application to set up shop on MySpace, one that perhaps has a true interest in the nonprofit and community there. Photo by Billie Hara Late last night (or early this morning), Amy Sample

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2009 Member Appreciation: Daily Member Prize Winner for 11/6

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:10:37 PST

Eva Penar, from Chicago Community Trust Thank Did you enjoy the first week of 2009 NTEN Member Appreciation ? I did! We had free webinars and lots of prize give-aways, and even the first ever NTEN Gives Thanks Day . I'm I'm glad that we get a few more weeks at this (leading up to Thanksgiving Day).

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Policy 2.0: Can Online Collaboration Lead to Better Public Policy?

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:22:00 PST

Tags: Influence Online Communit First came "Web 2.0" quot; in which we (the people) got the power to publish, share, comment, friend, follow, tag, and organize online. Then came "Gov 2.0" quot; and the trumpets sounded for transparency of government data and innovation.

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Policy 2.0: Can Online Collaboration Lead to Better Public Policy?

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:22:00 PST

They collaborated online on the Jive community platform , the recommendations were published in a report , and the results were presented at an October 26 event at the National Press Club. What's most exciting about this platform is that it puts the power to craft real policy solutions in the hands of the engaged citizen, whether that citizen is a teacher who wants to have input in the policy that impact his/her livelihood, or a community member motivated by a desire to improve a failing school district. First came "Web 2.0" 34; in which we (the people) got the power

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Social bookmarking: keeping me organized one tag at a time

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:39:00 PST

We Are Media , (curated by Beth Kanter on behalf of NTEN ) asks their community to take 5 minutes to tag interesting resources with wearemedia in Delicious. I love Delicious . As indicated in my post earlier this week announcing Idealware's Social Media Resource Library , for the past couple of months, I have been conducting an audit on available social media resources for nonprofits. There

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Video Fridays #21 Hashtags ###

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 02:01:37 PST

According to the Twitter Fan Wiki , they are defined as: “a community -driven convention for adding additional context and metadata to your tweets. Hashtags – what are they? They could be one of your best friends on social media sites and you may not know about them. They’re like tags on Flickr, only added inline to your post.

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New on SSIR: Letting Technology Lead

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:09:32 PST

recent event has brought up some huge red flags for me around data, around communities , around social impact, inclusion and even more. It’s a case of letting technology lead (or, rather, the people behind the technology) instead of the communities on the other end. Different communities have aligned and adopted different social networks, social media tools, communications platforms, etc. My latest post for the Stanford Social Innovation Review is up and I hope you’ll dive into the conversation with me! A

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New on SSIR: Letting Technology Lead

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:09:32 PST

2009 Member Appreciation: Daily Member Prize Winner for 11/5

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 07:44:16 PST

Everything You Need to Know About Launching an Online Community (today) cafepress.com/ nten I don't know about the rest of you, but I still feel a little giddy from all the #ntenthanks love that was shared online yesterday via Twitter and our Facebook Fan Page during our first ever NTEN Give Thanks Day , a new addition to our annual Member Appreciation month festivities. (By By the way, folks are still giving #ntenthanks, I see, so feel free to keep sharing!) One

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The Red Cross/Red Crescent Social Media First Aid Kit

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:45:15 PST

The IFRC believes that sharing of information and experiences benefits the whole humanitarian community and ultimately the beneficiaries we serve. Earlier this year, we took a look at the US Air Force's social media policy . I still think that not only is a social media policy for employees increasingly becoming a legal necessity for your nonprofit, but it

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Social Actions and Open Data Standards: A conversation is building

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:57:29 PST

Rachel Weidinger proposes an NTEN panel that would provide nonprofits a ""basic framework of things to consider including identity and anonymity, digital inclusion and access, community management, taxonomy, content ownership, and your data ecosystem" among other things (it's a very robust proposal, I hope you'll check it out). Watching several conversations unfold related to open data, and open data standards, for the philanthropic sector. I

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WeAreMedia: Help Us Crowdsource A Hollywood Ending

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:20:54 PST

It is time for the community to write the Hollywood ending ! Then the project first launched, we invited the community to help us build the curriculum on a wiki. We facilitated over 200 nonprofit techies ( editoral advisory group , subject matter experts , and wiki members ) who contributed ideas, writing, copy-editing, lesson plans, presentations , and knowledge to build an impressive social media knowledge resource for the community . It's NTEN appreciation month and I can think of no better way than to say thank you to all the NTEN members (and non-members) who have contributed to the WeAreMedia project.

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2009 Member Appreciation Month: Day Three

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 06:57:12 PST

I'm thankful for all NTEN members for their generosity and passion for the nonprofit technology community ! #ntenthanks Flickr: vernhart There are 3 great things happening on this 3rd day of our 2009 Member Appreciation Month : First, First, our daily NTEN member prize (we're giving NTEN prizes away each week day leading up to Thanksgiving, randomly selected from NTEN members): >

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Give your #NTENThanks Today!

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 06:24:21 PST

We spend all month doing our best to thank folks who provide the financial support that makes all those NTEN reports , discussion groups , webinars and more available to the entire nonprofit community . Of It's a realy joy to watch so many people in the NTEN community share their frustrations, triumphs, tips and tricks. if (WIDGETBOX) WIDGETBOX.renderWidget('8c0e03fb-448b-42b3-a3ca-14a84817146f');Get the Holly Ross (ntenhross) on Twitter widget and many other great free widgets at Widgetbox ! Not seeing a widget? (

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The NonProfit Times - The Leading Business Publication For Nonprofit Management

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:25:00 PST

Sharing their story, building a community , public relations, and donor engagement/retention -- not raisin The NonProfit Times - The Leading Business Publication For Nonprofit Management: "Time, Resources Slow Nonprofit Social Media AdoptionThe responses of 1,295 nonprofit executives show that 91 percent raise money online, but only 58 percent of those nonprofits use social media for fundraising.

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Nonprofit Software Development Summit - November 18-20

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 12:55:59 PST

According to Aspiration, "The event will target a range of audiences, including users who know what they still need developed, developers writing code to support nonprofit needs, integrators deploying tools for nonprofit and social justice organizations, and individuals who just care about seeing better technology developed to address the broad range of issues we face as a global community ." If you're in the Bay Area November 18-20, come check out Aspiration's 2009 Nonprofit Software Development Summit in Oakland. This is the third time Aspiration has hosted this event, and by the

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Can A Public Nonprofit Dashboard Be Your Organization's Best Friend or Worst Enemy?

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 10:49:26 PST

There were some gut-churning moments putting those numbers up, but they are really the proof-in-the-pudding and demonstrate that the dashboard isn't just a spin exercise for the museum's PR department. On a positive note, sharing the negative statistics accurately gives us a GREAT platform to talk to donors and funding agencies about the realities of the IMA's financial situation, it's very clear that we are caring for the museum well as indicated online, but continue to need support from our community . Photo Source: Indianapolis Museum of Art Blog Many of us have a

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Social Media Best Practices for Non-Profit & Public Sector Organizations

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:10:00 PST

Best practices online community Social networking case studies Non-profit Communications training webinar social medi Jay Moonah's presentation on Social Media Best Practices for Non-Profit & Public Sector Organizations was streamed live online as part of The Canadian Institute’s recent “Managing Social Media” conference recently - but if you missed it, no worries! We’ve got the highlights right here. ...(

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Interview: Avi Kaplan, Epic Change for TweetsGiving

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 02:00:31 PST

I recently had the opportunity to connect with Avi Kaplan, the Community and Events Director at Epic Change , to discuss the upcoming TweetsGiving campaign and events. Epic Change is a US nonprofit dedicated to helping social entrepreneurs harness the power of their stories to create change in their communities. Funds raised will go to support the work of Mama Lucy Kampton ( @MamaLucy ), a ChangeMaker who Originally posted on the NetSquared blog. Avi is just back from Tanzania where he and other Epic Change team members were working with the students in the classroom built with

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Interview: Avi Kaplan, Epic Change for TweetsGiving

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 02:00:31 PST

Next #4Change Chat Topic: Volunteering

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:39:43 PST

New forms of participation such as micro-volunteering, and web-generated events such as Twestival, are changing the way people are coming together to raise funds, donate their time and make a difference in their local and global community . Originally posted on the #4Change blog by Tash Judd. Social media and new technology are changing the way we recruit and manage volunteers.

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Next #4Change Chat Topic: Volunteering

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:39:43 PST

2009 Member Appreciation: First Member Winner

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 09:04:58 PST

Weathering the Economic Storm: Your Online Community and Bottom Line (Tuesday, Nov 3) Everything You Need to Know about Launching an Online Community (Thursday, Nov 5) And It's the first Monday in November, which means the first of many daily give-aways . Today's Today's prize is a free webinar coupon.

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Forum One's Experience with SlideShare

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 09:00:00 PST

Tags: Influence Online Communit We recently described how we use social media at Forum One. Today we'll talk about the category leader for posting and sharing PowerPoint presentations, SlideShare . ...Tags:

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Twitter: I think I get it. Now what do I tweet?

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 08:07:46 PST

But if you’re hoping to cultivate an interactive, conversational, meaningful community on Twitter, there’s a lot of work involved. Perhaps building and cultivating the kind of community you want would take more time than you have, which means that now isn’t the right moment to dive in. Or Elizabeth Ricca, Big Duck [Ed. Ed.

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2009 NTEN Member Appreciation Month: Let the Festivities Commence!

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 08:06:26 PST

Tags: community buzz member appreciation NPTech nten member Welcome to November. I think we can officially call it a tradition now: November is Member Appreciation Month . This month is all about YOU, NTEN members! Just Just what

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What's Up With All the Guest Blog Posts? Member Appreciation!

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 08:02:57 PST

Will It Take a Village to Bring Our Communities Online ? What Nonprofits Should Know About Launching a Social Networking Community For the 3rd year running, the November edition of NTEN Connect will be filled with content written entirely by our Members -- but with a twist. Last Last month, we put out a call for articles, and received 21 submissions from NTEN Members.

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Tapping into the Strengths of a Generation – The Millennials

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 07:59:58 PST

Ensure that your website and community is mobile-ready (and no, not every site is optimized for the mobile user). Online communities and wiki are great for keeping their interest. Christina Smith, YourMembership.com Inc. [Ed. Ed. note: This article is part of NTEN's Member Appreciation Month spectacular.

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How To Use Information You Already Have To Personalize Constituent Experiences Online

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 07:58:44 PST

We recently sent out a thank-you email to thank our community for successes during Hunger Action Month in September. recently had a competition for community members to watch a preview of a new movie along with our Kids Cafe children. Capital Area Food Bank of Texas : The mission of the Capital Area Food Bank of Texas is to nourish hungry people and lead the community in ending hunger. Aimy Wiley, Capital Area Food Bank of Texas [Ed. Ed.

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The Power of Personalization

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 07:58:27 PST

We’ve been personalizing our direct mail campaigns for decades; we talk about the kinds of programs a donor has contributed to, how long a constituent has been a member, where constituents live and the impact our organizations have in their community , but for some reason nonprofits are not incorporating the information captured within email communications. A Catherine Folkes, Severn Consulting Group [Ed. Ed.

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How To: Create a Listening Dashboard for your Organization

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 07:56:49 PST

NetSquared.org - putting this URL in the search term area of the alert means that if someone wrote out our URL on their blog, for example, I would get alerted. “Amy Sample Ward” or “Billy Bicket” - putting this in the search term area of the alert means that any time Billy’s name (the NetSquared Director) or my own (the NetSquared Global Community Development Manager) is mentioned online, I will get alerted. Try It is great to comment and be visible in the community of thinkers and doers in your sector. Amy Sample Ward, NetSquared [Ed. Ed.

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Indictment of Online Strategies: The Man in the Mirror Doesn't Trust You Either.

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 07:48:18 PST

we want to create online, scalable, diverse and fast communities to support us and work with us we must solve the "disconnect" between the way we deal with people online and offline. This should be a wake up call for lots of online strategies that are not transparent, don't communicate results and just use online work to build a base of donating click monkeys. People are not happy with the distrust shown to them online.

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A New Marketing Paradigm: How Affordable, Active and Agile Technology Can Change Nonprofits

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 07:40:42 PST

Matt McCabe, Vice President of Community , Orange Leap Matt Orange Leap, Matt is in charge of cultivating a vibrant community to ensure that all users get the most value from the company’s open source software and can easily partner with one another on development as well as share applications and knowledge. Prior Matt McCabe, Orange Leap [Ed. Ed.

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What You Are NOT Doing CAN Hurt You

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 07:35:28 PST

When looking at options to enter the online fundraising and marketing world, make sure you partner with an organization that has a great deal of online marketing experience behind the products and that allows you to leverage staff time, create campaigns using templates, best practices and lessons learned from a community of peers and organizations that have had proven results. Meg Murphy, Convio [Ed. Ed.

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Will It Take a Village to Bring Our Communities Online?

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 07:34:15 PST

nonprofits, what are our responsibilities to our communities? As humans, what are our responsibilities to our communities? Where is your community online? I appreciate Marnie Webb's insistence that nonprofits have a responsibility to bring their communities , their constituencies, online . (If Rachel Weidinger [Ed. Ed.

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Security and Privacy in a Web 2.0 World

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 07:18:00 PST

Strident voices in the community called for full disclosure, urging affected nonprofits to put a warning on the home page of their web sites. If the affected constituents have all been notified, and they represent a small portion of the donor base, it's questionable whether scaring your supporters in the name of openness is really warranted. Since alternate exposure, in the press or community , is likely to occur, the priority is to have a consistent policy about how and when you broadcast information about security breaches. Yes, we do Twitter requests! To break down that tweet a bit, @kanter is the well-known Beth Kanter of Beth's blog . @pearlbear is former Idealware blogger and current contributor Michelle Murrain , and Beth asked us, in the referenced blog post , to dive a bit into internet security and how it contrasts with internet privacy concerns.

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America’s Giving Challenge Gets Another $75,000 To Give Away

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:09:54 PDT

America’s Giving Challenge offers a tremendous opportunity to raise funds and awareness for nonprofit organizations at a time when the communities we care about, including children and families, have never been in greater need of their services,” said Anne Mosle, vice president for programs at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation supports children, families and communities as they strengthen and create conditions that propel vulnerable children to achieve success as individuals and as contributors to the larger community and society. America’s Giving Challenge is an amazing program from The Case Foundation that See3 had the opportunity to support this year.

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Learn How TechSoup Can Help Your Organization: November 12

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:39:42 PDT

Join TechSoup.org content creators, community leaders, and customer service support on November 12 from 11:00 a.m. Whether you're a regular TechSoup user or haven't heard of us til now, we've got a free webinar coming up that will likely show you something new about how you can get more out of the variety of (free) services we offer to nonprofits and libraries. Learn How TechSoup Can Help Your Organization

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Nonprofit Taglines for Zombies (Happy Halloween)

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:32:57 PDT

the spirit of fun and Halloween -- and because we're NTEN -- we, with a little help from our terrific community , have zombified 12 of the winning taglines: "Big Nancy Schwartz has begun the roll-out of her excellent report on the best best Nonprofit Taglines, 2009 edition, by announcing the winners. You can,

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Guest Post by Steve Waddell: Systems Mapping for Non-Profits - Part 1

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:49:23 PDT

community development. See larger image here: Map from: Waddell, Steve. 2005. A Learning History of the CARE LAC - Institute for Strategic Clarity Guatemala Poverty Project . Institute for Strategic Clarity, March 15 Note from Beth: As visiting scholar at the Packard Foundation, I'm connecting with other people who are

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Library clips :: Online communities - technical facilitators are not enough :: October :: 2009

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:03:00 PDT

Library clips :: Online communities - technical facilitators are not enough :: October :: 2009: "I’m finding that some Communities of Practice (CoPs) at work are lacking leadership even though they have a community leader.This is a broad statement, and there can be many reasons for this, but in this post I want to focus on one particular reaso

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Churches connect with parishioners online -- chicagotribune.com

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 07:40:00 PDT

Churches connect with parishioners online -- chicagotribune.com: "On Tuesday, 250 Web-savvy Christians -- from blogging pastors to iPhone programmers -- gathered at Park Community for Cultivate 09, an interactive conference on ministry communication, which includes marketing strategy. More than a third of Americans younger than 50 don't have a religious affiliation, according to a 2008 study b

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Community Voices at Digital Engagement Event: Reflections on the Conversation

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 04:23:47 PDT

At the Digital Engagement Event , back on 6th October, David Wilcox and I helped the Community Voices team facilitate two sessions that focused on the three things more important to digital engagement than the technology. You can check out the Community Voices group on the Social by Social community for videos, notes and other reflections from the event. We split participants up by topic areas for discussions and Community Voices team members lead the small group conversations, while others used various tools to capture what was said (audio, video, tweets and blogging).

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Community Voices at Digital Engagement Event: Reflections on the Conversation

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 04:23:47 PDT

Twitter Lists for Nonprofits

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 02:16:02 PDT

Tags: community strategy campaigns lists twitte Lauren Cochrane has a great post today with ideas for lists organizations could create with Twitter’s new List function. If you haven’t heard about Lists yet, you’re not behind! They have only been rolled out to around half of the users so far.

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Twitter Lists for Nonprofits

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 02:16:02 PDT

10 Popular #Hashtags for Nonprofits

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 07:13:58 PDT

volunteer[s]: This hashtags can be useful to send out a call for volunteers, to thank volunteers, or to promote the work of your volunteer community . If used correctly, #hashtags can be very useful to nonprofits on Twitter. Hashtags allow your organization to participate and inspire conversations (and in the process get new followers) and organize the Twitterverse around campaigns ( #climatechange ) and events ( #openwebawards ).

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7 Ways to Change the World: Nonprofits Enter to Win!

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:16:09 PDT

Or maybe upgrading the public computing lab you run for local lower-income community , will help people access job-hunt, language learning, and healthcare information easier. Since Windows 7 launched last week, there has been a flurry of activity from nonprofits and libraries looking to start using the new operating system. TechSoup has written a bunch of articles , blog posts , and forum threads to help people figure out whether to upgrade and how to do it.

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Guest Post by Aspen Baker: Friend or Foe? UC Berkeley Investigates the Legal Landscape of Social Networking

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 08:58:53 PDT

These questions remain undecided and any group that works with victims of violence or communities targeted by law enforcement will pay close attention. Privacy There were a lot of big questions around what defines “content.” This seems like an incredibly important part of how we think about the cost and benefits of social networking in our organizations, communities and towards our social change missions. To stay updated on how the legal landscape develops, follow the Samuelson Law, Technology and Public Policy Clinic blog at UC Berkeley Law. Note from Beth: As I listened to the NPR story this week about online privacy, it is becoming very important for us to understand the implications.

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Data Portability for Good

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 08:42:58 PDT

The community around your issue will learn to count on your research and information. This elevates you from just somebody with data to a service on which the rest of the community depends. Michaela Hackner and Sandy Smith, Forum One Communications For For four weeks this summer, we got a crash course in data transparency.

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How to Level Up

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 08:04:05 PDT

It might be learning how to build successful blog posts (see 27 Blogging Secrets to Power Your Community ). Chris Brogan , New Marketing Labs [Ed. Ed. Note: This article was originally published on Chris Brogan's blog . We've changed a couple of words to make

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Chain Reaction 2009: the Social by Social game

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 06:08:45 PDT

We succeed when we work together… Chain Reaction is a community of people, passionate about social change, who are saying ‘we can make a difference’. Drawing on the learnings included in Social by Social: a practical guide to using new technology for social impact , the Social by Social Game walks participants through the strategic steps of creating a social media program for your community , whether you’re part of an organization, a geographic community , a campaign, or anything else. Chain Reaction is coming back to London, and the world, this November. Last year, innovators

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Chain Reaction 2009: the Social by Social game

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 06:08:45 PDT

Frequently Asked Windows 7 Donation Questions

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:14:07 PDT

Our community forums have also experienced a flurry of discussion on the operating system and lots of questions are being answered there. As many may know, Microsoft's new Windows 7 operating system became available last week worldwide and through TechSoup's Microsoft Donation Program . Our customer service representatives have been plowing through the donation requests, helping nonprofits and libraries register and place their requests, and answering questions about whether to upgrade and how to do it .

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Upcoming Webinar: Cause Marketing - Getting the Message Right for the New Consumer/Donor

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:28:02 PDT

Join Care2, the largest online social networking community of cause-oriented adults, and BBMG - a values-driven branding and marketing firm - for an informative webinar on how socially responsible brands and nonprofit organizations can leverage current consumer trends to win loyalty and inspire action. As more consumers and donors look to live lives of purpose, the cause-oriented marketing space has become increasingly crowded. Clear communication of your brand is more important than ever to cut through the noise.

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Mobile Commons Nominated for 2009 MMA Awards

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:14:44 PDT

Center for Community Change ••• The Center for Community Change was founded in 1968 to honor the life and values of Robert F.Kennedy. The Center is one of the longest-standing champions for low-income people and communities of color. Their The Center for Community Change strengthens, connects and mobilizes grassroots groups to enhance their leadership, voice Mobile Commons was just nominated as a finalist for 2 awards at the Mobile Marketing Association’s Fifth Annual Global Mobile Marketing Awards! Of course, we are excited to be selected, but

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How To: Create a Listening Dashboard for your Organization

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 08:40:02 PDT

NetSquared.org - putting this URL in the search term area of the alert means that if someone wrote out our URL on their blog, for example, I would get alerted. “Amy Sample Ward” or “Billy Bicket” - putting this in the search term area of the alert means that any time Billy’s name (the NetSquared Director) or my own (the NetSquared Global Community Development Manager) is mentioned online, I will get alerted. It is great to comment and be visible in the community of thinkers and doers in your sector. This month’s Net2 Think Tank question asks, “How do you stay up-to-date online?”

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How We Use Social Media at Forum One

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 06:20:00 PDT

At Forum One, we spend a lot of time thinking about social media: we run the Online Community Research Network , we lead many social media events every year, and we have provided consulting services to several hundred organizations . We have even published the Online Community Report newsletter for 13 years (yikes). So The Online So when it comes to designing our company's own social media strategy, it should be simple, right?

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YouTube Steps Up For Nonprofits

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 15:24:32 PDT

One of those things is to leverage the YouTube community to make videos for nonprofits. YouTube is doing some cool things for nonprofits . They have a program called Video Volunteers , which encourages YouTube video makers to make videos about nonprofit issues. They launched the program and I didn’t see much activity.

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Small steps to a larger goal

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:24:42 PDT

When you work with a community of users or customers, their requests can easily overwhelm you. On a recent trip to the Bay Area, I had a chance to share a dinner with an amazingly productive and visionary friend who works in the social change field. In the midst of dinner she asked me a very interesting question, “When your goal is very long-term, how do you decide what to do today?

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Please Don't Send Me to My Personal Webpage

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:15:00 PDT

This allows each visitor to see her actions in the context of what others have done, and to become part of a light " community " of participants. If visitors make stop-motion animations at the museum and come back to the web to view them, why not provide a tool or links to places where you can make really complex animation products (which can also then be shared with the visitor community )? Yesterday, I visited the Experimentarium , a science center just north of Copenhagen in Denmark. There were many intriguing exhibits and a novel cellphone game (more on that in another post),

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The Last Blogpotomac: A New Community Rises from the Ashes

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 18:03:02 PDT

The strong community vibe in the room was inspiring and comfortable. Since this was the last BlogPotomac (read this insightful post about why), the community self-organized a wake after the conference. There was food and drink and then everyone got to say a few words about why the people, conference, and community mattered to them. Flickr Photo by Ghbrett I'm I'm writing this post from 30,000 feet aboard Virgin America as I fly back to California from a whirlwind week on the East Coast.

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Guilting Donors in 30 Seconds or Less

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:25:33 PDT

The one that drives me crazy, both as a public radio fan and as a member of the nonprofit community , is the "help us stop this dreaded pledge drive!" This week, Slate has a cute article on the lines public radio stations use to get pledge drive donations. If you listen to public radio, these will all have a familiar ring, particularly around this time of year:

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Email is Dead? Long Live Email

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:27:49 PDT

Between 2008 and 2009 the number of users on social-networking and other community sites jumped 31% to 301.5 First there were rumblings that direct mail was dying. Then TechCrunch said Web2.0 was dying. Yea right!

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Expand Your Donor Base: Last Chance for NOZA Promotional Offer!

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 12:34:47 PDT

Also, libraries and nonprofits can make their subscription available to individual community members and patrons to help them research potential donors for community , school, and local programs. This week through TechSoup Limited, we've been running a special discount on NOZA , a database of philanthropy data. This database has more than 43,000,000 (million) donation records in it — where you can search for individuals, corporations, and foundation donation records to see who they've supported in the past, how much they've given, and look for those donors who may be likely to

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NTEN Member Buzz Round-Up: October 23rd

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 11:46:36 PDT

Tags: community buzz NPTech nten member (Note: This is a weekly round-up of NTEN members doing and sharing their nptech awesome. Members are in bold. Tag your news with "nten member" or "nptech" to help us find your awesome, or contact Annaliese with your updates.) NTEN is People! (Flickr:

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Digital Storytelling Challenge Awardees Announced!

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 17:44:53 PDT

These stories help convey the work they do, advance their missions, and highlight the communities they're working within by giving a visual (and sometimes audio) story to help supporters connect with their mission and values. Third Place: Tabor Kalaka 2009 by The Community Foundation of Odorheiu Secuiesc awarded Adobe Production software. Last night, we held our Digital Storytelling Challenge Awards Party here at TechSoup headquarters in San Francisco. We screened highlights from the more than 100 video, image, and GoldMail submissions and celebrated the great work nonprofits

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8 Best Free Video-Sharing Sites for Nonprofits

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:40:00 PDT

online community Social networking Video Non-profit Communications websites Videos media publicity social media YouTub Thanks to low-cost cameras, and free or inexpensive software tools, there’s a place for video production within the budget of even small nonprofits and associations. And distributing your videos on the Internet has never been cheaper or easier......(

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10 Tips for Managing Social Media Burnout

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 07:47:57 PDT

This is community building. Six months ago I came pretty close to complete social media burnout. I was running over 20 social networking profiles, logging in seven days a week, and at minimum pulling 60-hour work weeks. My brain was completely fried and those around me were getting pretty fed up with the fact that I was never present, only connected… online, all the time.

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“The Girl Effect” Effect

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 06:55:10 PDT

and then spends the rest of the clip (2 minutes) visualizing what girls, if empowered, can do for themselves, their communities and for us, the viewer. In the past year we have gotten quite a few calls from existing and new clients asking to make a “girl effect” video. For those of you have yet to see “The Girl Effect” you can scroll below and see it.

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Social Media, Integrated Marketing and a Morning Out of the Office Sure Does a Body Good

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 17:01:37 PDT

The benefits go on and on… using Facebook and Twitter as listening mechanisms and affordable focus groups, for building communities of like-minded people that care about a cause, an efficient and cost-effective way to engage younger audiences that will be future advocates, donors and volunteers, and much more. Author: Jill Ward Yesterday, I spent the morning out of the office (yay!!)

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New Study Reveals Nonprofits Still Need to Adapt Online Communications Best Practices

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 12:18:09 PDT

This surprised members of the nonprofit community because both thanking supporters and updating them after taking an action online is part of Online Advocacy 101. After studying over 50 international nonprofit organization's email lists and response rates, the 2009 eCampaigning Review Study revealed that 60% of nonprofits present a compelling argument for supporters to take action, yet close to 70% of the organizations did not send a follow up email within one month. 37% of nonprofits did not even bother to send a thank you email.

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Digital Storytelling Challenge Awards Tonight!

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 08:57:16 PDT

If you're interested in learning more about creating digital stories for your organization, check out the series of webinars we conducted that take you from developing the strategy , picking the right tools , and walking you through step-by-step instructions for how to create and share your organization's story with your community . You may have heard about TechSoup's Digital Storytelling Online Event that's been going on all month. Well, tonight we're rolling out the red carpet for the finale where we'll be announcing the big winners !

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PopTech Fellows Program: Reflections

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:26:19 PDT

One of the benefits of taking this approach is that it shifts the instructional design from sage on the stage to learning in the community . It also helped me discover an authentic example of social media for social good - WildlifeDirect. Kristen Taylor is the Digital Content/ Community Manager and writes the blog . She created a wonderful PopTech Slides View more presentations from kanter I

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dBusinessNews :: Daily Business News Delivered to Your Desktop

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 07:43:00 PDT

PRESS ReleasedBusinessNews :: Daily Business News Delivered to Your Desktop: "The Minnesota Community Foundation and other key nonprofit leaders in Minnesota created GiveMN to take advantage of the many benefits offered by online giving for both donors and nonprofits. While the median nonprofit raises less than 1 percent of its funds online today, e-philanthropy is far less expensive fo

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Great reads from around the web on October 20th

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 07:00:33 PDT

The customers in this case are the communities where we live and work." These are some links I wanted to share from October 20th. Find me on Delicious for more! Social Media and Technology: What Nonprofits Need To Know « Nonprofit Communications: Duck Call Blog - I really love the highlights Farra shares from the “Social Media and Technology: What Nonprofits Need To Know" panel she attended yesterday as part of #baruchnp,

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Facebook Groups Get a Page-style Makeover

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 06:48:00 PDT

Tags: Non-profit technology nptech online community Social networking Facebook Non-profit Communications social medi Facebook has just begun to introduce a new design for its Groups application that looks a lot more like Pages and personal Profiles. "Giving Giving Groups a Stronger Voice" should be good news for the many nonprofit folks frustrated by the limitations of Facebook Groups, compared to what the spiffy new Fan Pages offer....(

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Getting Attention Nonprofit Tagline Awards Winners Announced

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 06:04:32 PDT

Associations: Building community deep in the hearts of Texans —TexasNonprofits Barefoot Workshops’ tagline sums up the transformative power of stories to create change in people and their communities , so clarifying the organization’s focus. Both large and small nonprofits earned top honors this week for their attention-getting taglines, demonstrating again that an organization of any size can craft a powerful, pithy motto to build awareness and connect with its key audiences. Organizations of all sizes participated in the Getting Attention Nonprofit Tagline Awards, hosted by

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NTEN, Zombies, and Renewing Your Membership: What Do These Have to Do With Each Other?

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:14:41 PDT

And we're not just talking about empty numbers here, we're talking about access to the people who can give you sound advice and real stories: that's the NTEN community . The cool crispness in the air (or rain drops, or snow flakes, depending on where where you are) means we're heading to the close of this year. That means

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Guest Post by Gordon Mayer: Playing Learning Games to Spread Nonprofit Social Media

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 11:43:44 PDT

Gordon Mayer is vice president of Community Media Workshop , a nonprofit that coaches and trains mostly Midwestern volunteer and staff nonprofit communicators on communications strategy, social media, media relations, and related topics. Even at at 4 p.m.

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June Holley and The Art of Being Rhizomatic (The Practice of Network Weaving)

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 11:13:47 PDT

Maybe this conversations could take place on an existing community of practice ( Iscale ). Meeting June Holley for the first time! Last week, as part of my work at the Packard Foundation as visiting scholar I had the opportunity to participate in a face-to-face convening of the "Network of Network Funders," facilitated by the Monitor Institute . The most exciting moment for me was to meet June Holley face-to-face - the guru of network

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29 Nonprofit Bloggers to Follow on Twitter

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 09:40:39 PDT

Blog: Community Organizer 2.0 Last week I asked the followers of @NonprofitOrgs to nominate their favorite nonprofit bloggers. The list below is the result of that “Tweet Out”. Some on the list are very known in the nonprofit sector, and others are completely under the radar and providing some very valuable resources to the nonprofit sector.

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Networks, social change, and tech tools

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 07:32:32 PDT

If that's a ways off -- and I suspect that for most communities it is -- what do expect that "change-making" will look like? One On her Philanthropy 2173 blog, Lucy Bernholz recently posted a request for "examples of networks that have made some kind of positive social change happen. Ideally these are networks that: *

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Can Networks Have Social Impact?

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 03:57:24 PDT

You can read more in this series of five reports that looks at the definitions, research, power, practices, and insights relating the impact of social networks on family strengthening and community change. Last week, as part of my work at the Packard Foundation as visiting scholar I had the opportunity to participate in a face-to-face convening of the "Network of Network Funders," a community of practice facilitated by the Monitor Institute. I've been exploring the line between open/closed networks or communities , particularly online learning communities .

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Case Study in Local: Oakland Local

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 03:09:03 PDT

Oakland Local is a news & community site for Oakland, CA, USA, focusing on social justice issues including climate change, air quality, food access, arts as activists, and identity, race & ethnicity. Oakland Local is launching in partnership with 35 local nonprofit, neighborhood & community organizations: it combines postings of partner organizations’ news and information with blogging and with reported stories from a top quality news team. Oakland Local is launching today! About Oakland Local

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The 2009 America's Giving Challenge

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 17:20:55 PDT

The 2009 America’s Giving Challenge is a month long, national online competition that encourages people to leverage their online and offline personal networks to build communities via Facebook Causes, raise money and recruit supporters for a nonprofit. In 2007-2008 America’s Giving Challenge encouraged 70,000 individuals to help raise more than $1.8 million for nonprofit organizations.

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Social by Social: Book Giveaway!

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 08:15:25 PDT

It makes accessible the tools you need to engage a community , offer services, scale up activities and sustain projects. 8220;People who do the sort of stuff I do - supporting community activists in the use of social media - should get a copy and read around the subject a bit more.” Mark Walker, Sussex Community Internet Project I just got my first copy of the Social by Social book I co-authored earlier this year with David Wilcox , Andy Gibson , and Nigel Courtney and Clive Holtham from Cass Business School. That’s the book next to the SocialBySocial.com

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Jewish Television Network Delivers Online Religious Service

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 21:04:40 PDT

You are making me feel part of a greater community , thank you. – Toda Raba and Shalom to you and your community . – live in the mountains of Kentucky, many hours from the nearest Jewish community , and often find it difficult to travel for services. Once again the Jewish Television Network let people remotely watch Kol Nidre (Jewish High Holiday) service from their home via live webcast. And, for the second year in a row it was a hit.

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Why Women Are the Market for Changing the World, and How to Reach Them: Interview with The She Spot co-author, Lisa Witter

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:30:00 PDT

Women are engaged in their community. But this sense of creating a collective community is more important to women than it is men. It's just natural in our brains, if you look at the brain science and everything around that, women want to build community . Women truly value community connection, and so if you can connect women to one another you deepen their brand loyalty to you. If you are in charge of communications for your nonprofit or NGO, I recommend you read The She Spot: Why Women Are the Market for Changing the World, and How to Reach Them by Lisa Witter and Lisa Chen.

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NTEN Member Buzz Round-Up: Week of October 16th

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 10:18:33 PDT

and information on her Community Organizer 2.0 Tags: community buzz NPTech NTEN nten member 09 NTENnies At Large (Blackbaud's Chad Norman, and Convio's Jordan Viator) (Note: This is a weekly round-up of NTEN members doing and sharing their their nptech awesome. Members are in bold.

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The Persistence of Email - Take 2

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 02:46:00 PDT

These expectations and understandings vary by generation and community context. (And You need to correlate email campaigns with the full range staff and community advocacy and services that reach your constituency -- and the sub-groups and segments within it. I have been thinking about email lately. Email predates the World Wide Web as we know it.

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Blog Action Day 2009 Climate Change: Technology in the Climate Movement

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 11:15:47 PDT

The debate about what impact the online world has on offline action gets smashed when you look at these numbers and think about the over 12 million people around the world who are raising their consciousness by reading more about climate change and how they can get involved with their local communities . We'll Social Network Collaboration : Focus the Nation *, 1Sky , and Energy Action Coalition have decided to bridge their social networks onto one platform called The Climate Network using the community software tool Zanby . Today's Blog Action Day 2009 ! The annual event's

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Blog Action Day 2009: Creating Actions for Everyone on Climate Change

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 10:50:18 PDT

They wouldn’t even want to get a discount for shopping at a vintage shop (used clothes, not new) only on that day, and have lots of folks going together (bridge online and offline communities )?” Today is Blog Action Day and this year’s theme is Climate Change. Earlier this week, I posted a summary from this month’s #4Change chat that focused on social media in the Climate Change movement.

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Why Are So Many Participatory Experiences Focused on Teens?

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 08:51:00 PDT

A large number of the collaborative projects of which I'm aware (in which staff partner with community members to co-develop exhibits or programs) are initiated with teens. Teens more commonly use the Web to stay in touch with their pre-existing social groups than to join new communities based on content affinities or interests. As researcher Danah Boyd has pointed out, teens spend time on Facebook, MySpace, and other social networks because that's where their friends are. Over the past year, I've noticed a strange trend in the calls I receive about upcoming participatory museum projects: the majority of them are being planned for teen audiences.

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Chicken Meetups, Solar Panels, and Yelp: 3 tools for fighting Climate Change

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 04:01:46 PDT

It was an Austin Meetup.com online community and monthly meetings that allowed us to stop dreaming about chickens and actually jump into building a coop and adopting seven pullets (young hens). There truly is a community for everything. I’ve sometimes wondered how so many micro- communities have sprung up on Ning.com and Meetup.org. Author: Corey Pudhorodsky For a couple of years my wife and I have had a wacky idea: chickens in the backyard.

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My Blog Action Day Post: Climate Change and Poverty

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:49:00 PDT

Oxfam America wants supporters to send an email to President Obama asking him to, "make the US a leader [ during the United Nations Climate Change Conference ] in crafting an equitable global treaty that provides substantial financing for poor and vulnerable communities to adapt to climate change." Even though tomorrow, October 15th, is Blog Action Day , an annual event when bloggers write about the same issue on the same day, today is the best day for me to put up my post, so here it goes! I figure it's already October 15th in some parts of the world, so it's ok (: This year's

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Five Essential Apps for Your Nonprofit’s Facebook Page

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 07:01:54 PDT

Causes had quite a bit of buzz within the nonprofit community when it first came out, but when fundraising results were not all that great compared to “Donate Now” fundraising, some nonprofits moved on. There are thousands of Apps in the Facebook App Directory that Nonprofit Admins could experiment with on your organization’s Facebook Page, but below I have highlighted my five favorite Apps to get you started: 1.

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New on SSIR: #4Change Examines Social Media for the Climate Change Movement

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 00:53:24 PDT

8220;Real world movement needs to allow 3rd world (biggest victims) to take leadership” (@ SethHorwitz .) “The accumulation of climate conscious communities will slowly add to a big pay off. Linking in global messages or large-scale campaigns to “to offline events and opportunities across organizations/campaigns” (@ amysampleward ) can bring local communities into the mix and create more ownership for outcomes. My latest post is up on the Stanford Social Innovation Review opinion blog . For those that follow the #4Change twitter-based chats, this is

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White Paper – Online Community Vendors — SocialFish

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:23:00 PDT

White Paper – Online Community Vendors — SocialFish: "Six Online Community Vendors for Associations: An Analysis, is now available for download. It features six fabulous vendors who are committed to the association community –Higher Logic, NFi Studios, The Port, The Social Collective, Socious, and SusQtec

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Vote for Our Sessions: 2010 Nonprofit Technology Conference

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 11:24:56 PDT

Online Community : Real World Lessons for Supporting Meaningful Constituent Engagement Online To build or not to build (your own community features)? When it comes to building engagement about your issue online, we all know that interaction and community matter. But how do you balance between building It's that time again. Folks are getting excited about next year's Nonprofit Technology Conference in Atlanta .

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"Real Time Web" Summit - Thursday, October 15, Mountain View CA

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 08:15:03 PDT

Forum One's Chief Community Officer Bill Johnston will be there and has also blogged about essential reading on the topic of the real-time web. ...Tags: We're pleased to be partnering with ReadWriteWeb on an exciting conference this week - " The Real Time Web Summit ". If you will be in the SF Bay area you should really think about going!

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Can You Tell Your Nonprofit's Story in 5 Photos?

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:25:00 PDT

This contest is wide open to all — submissions are welcomed from the community at large, nonprofits, individuals, libraries, and organizations both in the US and elsewhere in the world — but your entries do need to be in by Friday, October 16th . TechSoup’s Digital Storytelling Challenge offers a chance for your photos and videos to win cool prizes for your organization, ranging from a Flip video camera to Adobe software. Even if you’re not 100% sure you can pull it off by the deadline, it’s still...(

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HealthMap's New 'Outbreaks Near Me' iPhone App

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 10:07:51 PDT

Our friends at HealthMap have created a very useful iPhone App for those in the global health community who need to track and/or report disease outbreaks--from swine flu to diseases affecting crops and animals. community in general, and one can imagine how reporting of all sorts of information HealthMap brings together disparate data sources from all over the web to achieve a unified and and comprehensive view of the current global state of infectious diseases

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Drupal 101: More on Modules

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 07:05:00 PDT

One of the great things about Drupal is that it is a popular application with a large developer community working with and around it. Most RTE editors are very configurable, but note that, in addition to installing the modules, you need to install the editors themselves, so follow the instructions carefully. Organic Groups If you're building a community site, with hopes of having lots of interactive, social features, Organic Groups gives you the flexibility to not only create all sorts of groups and affiliations on your own, but let your users create their own groups as well, much

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The Art of Aligning Social Media Strategy With Communications Strategy

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 16:59:24 PDT

Next week at the Communications Network Conference , my colleague Gordon Meyer from Community Media Workshop in Chicago is doing a 90 minute version of the " Social Media Strategy Game ." I'll be curious to find out what they discover as I'll be doing a two-hour version of the game the week after next at PopTech . Remixing Social Media Strategy Game View more presentations from kanter . Over the summer, Holly Minch , who is an expert at helping nonprofits and philanthropies unlock the

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Drawing Networks on Napkins with Peter Plastrik and Madeleine Taylor, Co-Authors of Net Gains

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 16:58:03 PDT

Peter is a president and co-founder of nuPOLIS is the Internet presence of the Innovation Network for Communities (INC), a national non-profit helping to develop and spread scalable innovations that transform the performance of community systems such as education, energy, land use, transportation and workforce development. Last week at the Packard Foundation, I finally had an opportunity to meet Peter Plastrik and Madeleine Taylor face-to-face. I first came across their thinking and work on building social networks for social change via the resources section on the Barr

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10 Elements of an Effective Nonprofit or Do-Good Blog

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 07:02:00 PDT

You'll build community and provide a useful information filtering service for your readers. 7. Engage your community and participate in other online communities Read other blogs. If after asking yourself the 10 Questions to Get You Started Using Social Media for Your Nonprofit or Do-Good Project, you've decided that a blog is good tool for you, consider incorporating the following 10 elements of an effective nonprofit, or do-good blog into your blogging strategy: 1. Make it easy to subscribe Have an rss feed.

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Glee, Volunteering, and You

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 11:43:55 PDT

Caught in the act, the two are forced to undertake a community service project as punishment. Coming soon to a TV network near you: " iParticipate Week !" quot; Over Over 60 network television shows will incorporate service into their plots, which is a great thing for our sector.

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NTEN Member Buzz Round-Up: First Week of October

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 09:22:13 PDT

Social Fish put together a report on 6 community /social networking platforms geared toward associations and member communities . Higher Logic , NFi Studions , ThePort , and Socious were included in this in-depth conversation and look at online community platforms. Tags: community buzz NPTech nten member (Note: This is a weekly round-up of NTEN members doing and sharing their their nptech awesome.

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Reflections on Network Effectiveness and Social Media Strategy Workshop

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 22:26:24 PDT

Since there was a strong sense of community and connection in the room, the spectragram discussion was really rich. Social Media Strategy Game Workshop Final View more presentations from kanter . I was in Washington, DC on Tuesday and Wednesday for a two-day workshop is designed for Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights Rights and Justice Leaders,

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Have Fun Do Good Link Love: Volunteerism on TV, Theatres Using Social Media & Tons of Contests

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 18:18:00 PDT

NEWS I'll be speaking about podcasting at the Community Technology Network Meetup in San Francisco on October 22nd . I have 3 new posts up on WE tv's WE Volunteer blog : 60+ Network TV Shows Highlight Volunteerism Oct. 19-25 Make a Difference Day: October 24th Step Up Women's Network: WE Volunteer Charity of the Month And 1 new post on the Global Center for Cultural Entrepreneurship blog: 5 Ways Theatres Can Use Social Media LINK LOVE Did you know that now you don't need an iPhone to micro-volunteer with The Extraordinaries? Check it out at

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Security and Privacy in a Web 2.0 world

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 18:08:41 PDT

Security and privacy in the context of online communities , as Beth points out, are different beasts. The software that drives online communities (such as Drupal, phpBB, and others) have options to allow for varied levels of security. These days, most software driving communities have roles you can assign people to, with specific privileges granted per role. Security Camera - Photo by Sirius Rust Beth threw down the gauntlet , and I had to pick it up.

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Avoiding the Community Manager Superstar

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 07:32:00 PDT

Every time a colleague tells me her museum has just hired a " community person," a part of me cringes. When community managers are the sole masters of their own dominions, two problems arise. First, their efforts are not fully integrated into the overall work and focus of other staff, which can lead to conflicts between institutional and community needs. I whole-heartedly support the goals that motivate the hire--to connect with visitors online and onsite in more meaningful relationships--but I worry about focusing such a broad mandate into the tiny point of a single individual.

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Twitter Adds Nonprofits to Suggested Users List

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 02:20:54 PDT

While it’s refreshing to see Twitter diversifying their “suggested user” list with nonprofits, foundations, and social change makers, these types of lists don’t have the space to highlight all of the great groups and folks who offer value to the Twitter community. The New York Times says that a spot on Twitter’s “suggested users” list guarantees 500,000 additional followers. CNET calls this the “New Socialism: a redistribution of attention, not of material wealth.”

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Next #4Change Twitter Chat: Social Media & the Climate Change Movement

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 00:44:07 PDT

Every month, a group called #4Change organizes open & lively conversations about how web-connected communities and our use of social media tools are helping to create change in the world. #4Change World leaders are meeting in Copenhagen in December to draft the next major global climate treaty – and organizations, communities , and people from every corner of the planet are stepping up to make sure this treaty gets our planet back on a sustainable path. Originally posted by Joe Solomon on the #4Change blog. 4Change Chats are hosted on Twitter – Read “ Join the Conversation

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Ant Trails, Autumn, and Placement of Fences

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 19:56:32 PDT

User or community guidelines are important. Guidelines should be articulated to participants in community guidelines. (Information shared behind this password protected area should not be shared with the mainstream media.) If community guidelines are formally articulated, they need to be enforced. Flickr Photo by Marin Labar I

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Happy Birthday, TechSoup New Zealand!

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:26:21 PDT

Tags: Acquiring Technology Community Tech Centers Digital Divide Running Your Organization Services Software Tech Plannin TechSoup Global has been rapidly expanding over the course of the past few years, with new nonprofit partners launched in 32 countries around the world (and many others on the way!) Our partner in New Zealand participated in a party hosted by Microsoft New Zealand to celebrate their first anniversary of being part of the TechSoup Global Network .

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Free Webinar: Using Ning to Connect with Your Community

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 12:25:32 PDT

Ning is a powerful tool that allows you to not only create a dynamic, easy to update website, but its functionality allows your community to create accounts, share information, connect with you and other people in your community and work collaboratively. The Internet is a great tool for communicating and connecting. We now have a variety of ways to do so, but which one is best suited for your needs?

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The NMC Symposium for the Future: Prepping for Virtual Keynote about Nonprofits in 2020

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 17:43:32 PDT

The initiative is called FutureLab, an Online Challenge for the Nonprofit Community to Chart a Vibrant 2020 and the business community and has produced “game changing” models such as The barriers preventing the nonprofit community from harnessing The 2009 NMC Symposium for the Future , the fourteenth in the NMC’s Series of Virtual Symposia (October 27-29th), will explore actual and potential applications of technology that could impact issues of global importance over the next five years and beyond. My colleague, NMC's VP Alan Levine (aka Cogdog Blog ) invited to give

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NTEN Member Buzz Round-Up: Last Week in September

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 10:05:45 PDT

community , including HunchLab , for analyzing crime statistics, and Daniel for the nptech community . Tags: community buzz nten membe (Note: This is a weekly round-up of NTEN members doing and sharing their nptech awesome. Members are in bold. Tag your news with "nten member" or "nptech" to help us find

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10 Questions to Get You Started Using Social Media for Your Nonprofit or Do-Good Project

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 09:12:00 PDT

If you have a do-good project, or a small nonprofit that you want to promote, fundraise for, or build an online community around using social media, your first step is to create a plan. You might find that the online community you want to create already exists. Putting limited resources towards building community around one tool will be more effective than barely engaging on multiple platforms. One of the most common questions I'm asked as a social media consultant is, "Which tool is the best?" Unfortunately, there isn't an easy answer to that question.

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Drupal 101

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 07:31:00 PDT

While you can put together a very sophisticated online community and/or website with it, you can also use it for pretty simple things. I've been doing a lot of work with the open source content management system Drupal lately, and thought I'd share some thoughts on how to get a new site up and running. Drupal, you might recall, got high ratings in Idealware's March '09 report comparing open source content management systems .

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10NTC: What do you want to talk about?

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 02:20:01 PDT

Read more about this session and vote here. >> The Social by Social Game: Social Media for Your Community . Come play the Social by Social Game and walk through the strategic steps of creating a social media program for your community , whether you’re part of an organization, a geographic community , a campaign, or anything else. NTEN’s Nonprofit Technology Conference held each Spring is always THE place to be for nonprofit techies: whether you work in a nonprofit organization or with one, are totally technical or fell into your techie job, like social media or like wiring an office.

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“While They’re Hot!” Webinar Recap on Converting New Donor Leads

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 17:45:39 PDT

Q: Are there ways that smaller orgs working on same issues within the same community collaborate to raise funds instead of competing? Care2’s latest monthly webinar on October 1st was called “While They’re Hot! Converting Fresh Leads Into Donors” and featured Heidi Hess of Children’s Defense Fund and Greg Zelder of the California State Parks Foundation , with Holly Ross of the Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Network (NTEN) moderating.

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The Message in the Cryptex

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 11:00:19 PDT

Today’s fancy network tools, social or otherwise, can move mountains, remove the barriers, streamline the donation, facilitate the transaction, and instantaneously validate the act of giving, relaying thanks, community , appreciation, and a receipt. Pffufft… Tools don’t create community. Tags: Advocacy Civil Different venues, different audiences, but the same query: Six times in as many months, I stood in front of a group asking (perhaps demanding) that I answer the same question. Audiences can be scary — and the question pointed to the heart of the matter.

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MyBallard recognized nationally for community collaboration

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 07:25:59 PDT

We’re excited to announce that My Ballard has just won an Online Journalism Award for community collaboration, edging out the LA Times and Miami Herald. While many journalists over the years have found that idea to be inferior to traditional news coverage, tonight My Ballard was applauded by a packed ballroom of journalists who recognize a new kind of community -powered news that gives the neighborhood a voice. Seattle continues to be a national leader in the post-newspaper world. MyBallard.com , our local neighborhood news blog, just got recognized nationally.

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FutureLab

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 12:50:00 PDT

FutureLab: "We are challenging people across the nonprofit and philanthropic community to come together to develop transformative ideas that will make our organizations more powerful forces in creating the kind of society we all wan

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Guest Post by Brooke McMillan: How LIVESTRONG Uses Social Media To Animate Its Community

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 05:49:00 PDT

community . survivors on a personal basis and animate the community . I asked Brooke McMillan, Online Community Evangelist, for the Lance Armstrong Foundation, to share some examples of how they engage with their community . October 2nd is LIVESTRONG Day- a day we set aside each year to focus on cancer survivors, advocacy efforts and community participation. Note from Beth: The Lance Armstrong Foundation , known by its nickname “Livestrong”, Livestrong”, provides a network of support for people diagnosed

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Borrowing from the Library to Support Workplace Learning

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 01:25:49 PDT

Storytelling is also a good way for learners to process and reflect on learning, particularly in support of reflective practice and communities of practice. Joyce Valenza is a librarian rockstar who also happens to be the head librarian at my daughter's high school. A recent post she wrote for the School Library Journal on strategies for teaching and using social media showed up in my Twitter feed the other day.

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Borrowing from the Library to Support Workplace Learning

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 01:25:49 PDT

Borrowing from the Library to Support Workplace Learning

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 01:25:49 PDT

Have Fun Do Good Link Love: Right Brain Business Plan, Blog Action Day, and Oprah

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:40:00 PDT

The Case Foundation, Causes, and PARADE are joining together to present the 2009 America’s Giving Challenge , a national competition launching on October 7. 77 ways to build community in your neighborhood from Our Blocks . How charities harness social media for a social impact from CSMonitor.com New Craiglist Foundation Nonprofit Boot Camp Podcasts: - Rethinking Back Office Functions - Randi Zuckerberg & Marjorie Weingrow - Change The World For Ten Bucks - Finding Abundance in a Challenging Environment Van Jones Breaks Silence On Resignation: 'Nothing But Love

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Some Thoughts on Livestreamed Interviews, Engagement, Book Winners, and Finger Puppets

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:39:28 PDT

How do you balance the time needed for approval with the need to answer your community in real time Yesterday, I had an opportunity to be interviewed as part of a series of online interviews with nonprofit social media gurus about how to use social media. The month long event was hosted by the Case Foundation and called " Gear Up for Giving ." The other gurus included respected colleagues and friends Holly Ross , Marnie Webb , Allison Fine , Katya Andresen , and Geoff Livingston . ( Sarah Koch from Causes will be the last session on Thursday) I'd like to dissect the format

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Write for NTEN Connect

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 14:09:10 PDT

Every November, during Member Appreciation Month, our monthly e-newsletter features articles written by you, the NTEN community . We're We're still doing that this year, but with a twist: at the end of October, we'll post, on our blog, the submissions we've received. The best reviewed articles -- as determined by page views, time on page, and number of comments -- will be published in the newsletter in mid-November. Exciting

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