Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

OCTOBER 29, 2008

Monday (the day before the election) I’m hosting the Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants. My focus: is the economy changing the way you work, or the way you think about your work? In what ways? If you’d like to submit a post, do so by Saturday midnight. Go to BlogCarnival.com to submit your post using the form there or send an email to npc.carnival AT yahoo DOT com with your name, your blog's name and the URL of the post (not your blog homepage).

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

OCTOBER 8, 2008

The China Braille Press was another impressive visit. Not only do they produce Braille in quantity, but the Press is also developing affordable technology for blind people such as screenreaders and talking ebook players. It's always a thrill to meet a new group that could be solely a traditional nonprofit, but is clearly thinking like a social enterprise!

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Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

OCTOBER 1, 2008

Time Chart - See Flickr Discussion on Version 1 Wanna Remix it? Download it here. I'm getting ready to a workshop later this week, I did a simple pre-workshop assessment, asking folks about their level of experience/comfort and their burning questions. I usually do this in a room with a quick poll, but I wanted to push myself to create the content based on their questions.

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Wild Apricot

OCTOBER 20, 2008

If you've checked your website statistics lately, you may have noticed an increase in the number of visitors who come to your site by way of image search results pages — Google Image Search, MSN Live Image Search, and so on. Webmasters are of mixed opinions about image search traffic, but there are some things you can do to make the most of the growing trend for image search, and its potential to bring new website readers.

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Speaker: Andrew Olsen, CFRE - EVP, Fundraising Solutions at DickersonBakker | Kat Landa, CFRE, CSD - SVP, Talent Solutions at DickersonBakker

Across the nonprofit sector, organizations invest heavily in donor retention efforts, yet the struggle of cultivating lasting relationships remains. While attracting new donors is crucial, the lack of repeat donors poses significant financial risks. Through a comprehensive analysis of industry data, experts argue that there is a direct correlation between donor burnout, donor retention, and the talent retention crisis.

Donor

NTEN

OCTOBER 29, 2008

Danielle Brigida, National Wildlife Federation. As social media grows in popularity, one fact cannot be ignored: if used well, it can generate impressive amounts of traffic and increase engagement around your cause or organization. If ignored, however, it can lead to tears of anguish and people punching their computers. I spend a lot (and I mean a lot) of time trying to figure out how to use social networking, bookmarking and news sites to enhance the National Wildlife Federation's online presen

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Steve Bridger

OCTOBER 15, 2008

Why is there no global search engine for good news? Imagine… a humungous aggregator of all the positive good that millions of people have done today. The tiny, but not so insignificant acts of kindness and philanthropy, which if joined together would add up to one heck of a powerful narrative for a more just world. Bad news happens fast and travels fast, while a good story can take much longer to blossom and bear fruit.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

OCTOBER 31, 2008

Guest blog from Beatriz, one of Benetech's human rights team members in Colombia. We Colombians are a resilient breed, accustomed to waking up to all kinds of distressing news and still somehow managing to go about our daily business. But today's mood in Colombia is more somber than usual. El Espectador, one of the two most important national daily newspapers, screams out in today's editorial: "Shame!

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Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

OCTOBER 29, 2008

E-Metrics: Followers, Friends, and Fans - Expanding Your Online Community View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: blogging nptech ). Marshall Kirkpatrick has a great post over at Read/Write Web about keeping momentum.  In that post, he describes one technique - make yourself a public case study.  So, in that spirit,  I'm sharing my presentation from last week which is a case study of my blogging ROI.  My main point is that you just think of ROI as math

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Wild Apricot

OCTOBER 27, 2008

Since the earliest days of world exploration, maps have told compelling stories to people who may never see the places depicted. Topographical lines on paper only go a small way to recreate the traveller's experience, however, and the rest depends on the viewers' imagination. Now, personalized and interactive maps are stretching those boundaries, and helping nonprofits to bring their messages home.

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NTEN

OCTOBER 29, 2008

Maddie Grant and Lindy Dreyer, SocialFish, LLC. Social media is all the buzz these days. For associations and non-profits are wondering how to get in the game -- or how to figure out whether they should -- listening is the place to start. While it's relatively easy to dabble in social media, listening is the critical component in developing a social media strategy that is right for both your audience and your objectives.

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Speaker: Tim Sarrantonio

The average nonprofit uses five or more different software platforms to create their donor’s journey, making the experience clunky and disjointed. If you want to design a magical online giving experience for donors, making their journey as seamless as possible is key. In this webinar with expert Tim Sarrantonio, you’ll learn the fundamental steps to create an immersive and personalized online giving experience for your donors.

Donor

Forum One

OCTOBER 24, 2008

I love maps - love reading them, analyzing them, staring at them - anything. I can spend tons of time doing this. When Google Earth came out I played with it for hours - [ahem] not on company time, of course - and when Google Maps interfaces started coming out, I wanted one. Alas, I had not the technical skill to create a mash-up with the Google Maps API.

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Map Google API Chapter 52

Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

OCTOBER 23, 2008

I’m in love with Firefox. I’ve actually been in love with Firefox since 3.0, when it seems like a few of the things that plagued it finally got ironed out. More and more websites are designed not only with Firefox in mind, but sometimes even primarily with Firefox. Here’s a short list of the Firefox Addons that I use all the time: Firebug - it’s a great tool for HTML/CSS/JS development.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

OCTOBER 29, 2008

Just spotted a nice video piece on the SoCap conference that features Benetech as one of the new crop of socially responsible businesses. The San Francisco ABC News reporter/anchor Teresa Garcia came out and interviewed Kevin Jones of GoodCap, Tim Freundlich of Calvert and yours truly. What was incredible about the Social Capital Markets conference was that a month before the conference, Kevin was worried about getting the 350 attendees he had planned for, since he had only 200-250 signed up.

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Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

OCTOBER 10, 2008

Last week for WeAreMedia project, I put a call on Twitter for case studies, best practices, and links about nonprofits using social networking sites, including Ning. Ning, which lets you set up your own custom social network, has attracted attention for its ability to create communities that are more functional than those created through competing services from Google and Yahoo listservs.

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Advertiser: Digital Ocean

Effectively managing cloud technology is getting more complex. From cybersecurity concerns, vendor lock-in, cost increases, or lack of transparency on costs, it can quickly get out of control. Knowing what you can control and finding a platform that’s built with nonprofits in mind is key.

Nonprofit

Wild Apricot

OCTOBER 22, 2008

It seems like a dozen different social-media sites start up every day, so it can be a challenge to know where to put your online outreach efforts. Twitter is one real-time networking platform that's clearly floated to the top of the social-media pool, however, and it's a great place for any nonprofit to dive in. If you've been using Twitter for a while, you're likely already aware of its value in spreading a message and making connections between people who have a shared interest — and of the

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Have Fun - Do Good

OCTOBER 23, 2008

I'm teaching my first webinar for a client in a couple weeks. Wahoo! I've been doing some research on how to present a successful webinar, and thought I'd share what I've learned. For folks who are unfamiliar with webinars, they are online classes where participants watch the speaker's presentation on the web, while listening to it via their phone. NTEN, Idealware, and TechSoup host webinars that will answer many of your burning nonprofit and technology questions!

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Forum One

OCTOBER 31, 2008

Shirley Sagawa and Deb Jospin spoke Thursday about their new book, "The Charismatic Organization: Eight Ways to Grow a Nonprofit that Builds Buzz, Delights Donors, and Energizes Employees" ( web site ). We co-hosted the morning meeting along with The Aspen Institute at their wonderful office, with an audience of about 40 people. Quick interview with Shirley and Deb: The official description of the book: The authors offer a framework that allows organizations to go beyond quick fixes and fundrais

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

OCTOBER 21, 2008

For a while, I’ve been watching MPower Open , the (not so) newly open sourced (but Windows-based) fundraising package. In general, I’ve been impressed by its feature set, and that they made the choice to go open source. MPower has traditionally been used primarily by faith-based organizations, (by the way, that’s not a small niche, even though it is one that is somewhat neglected by the nptech community,) and they have been quite committed to expanding from that niche.

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Advertiser: Syncrony

Looking for cost reductions for your nonprofit? Why not consider modernizing with a digital board management system that's designed to work with remote meetings, with immediate cost reductions if you still distribute paper packets to members? Get going in less than an hour on a fully hosted cloud solution built on the latest technology that runs on any device - from desktops to tablets and smartphones - without any installation.

Nonprofit

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

OCTOBER 26, 2008

We just announced the launching of Bookshare.org in India, and the response from the Indian press was immediate. The Times of India wrote For print-disabled, reading bestsellers is just a click away. The Indian Express said Bookshare.org inks pact with three organisations in India. And, the Hindustan Times also talked about our Online Library for the Blind.

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Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

OCTOBER 9, 2008

Original cartoon from Rob Cottiingham Social Signal. Yesterday, in preparation for a session I'm doing at BlogHer Boston , I created a quiz for folks to self-assess how much information overload was a factor. I got some great feedback and was able to revise the quiz - thanks. One of the questions was to identify whether or not you are spending too much time online.

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Wild Apricot

OCTOBER 14, 2008

For nonprofits, a well-run contest is often enough to raise a significant amount of money in ticket sales, entry fees and straight-forward donations But what about those contests that don't have an entry fee or other fundraising tool connected with them? What does the organization gain from the trouble and expense of putting on such an event? Attention.

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See3

OCTOBER 23, 2008

This election, and Sarah Palin in particular, has been a dream for comic writers. But what gets my attention in this clip is how easy it is to create a meme about what it means to be the mayor of a small town. A particular small town in Alaska. In fact, it seems the mayor of a town without its own schools or fire department doesn’t really do all that much.

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Advertiser: DonorDock

Are your donors your biggest fans, or are you lacking donor loyalty? The truth is, your donors have expectations of what their relationship with your organization should look like. This ebook will help you learn how to live up to those expectations!

Donor

Forum One

OCTOBER 28, 2008

I'm really looking forward to moderating our Web Executive Seminar tomorrow morning October 29 at the National Press Club in Washington. It's called Online Video for Policy Impact. A smart group from diverse organizations is coming. We'll see folks from World Resources Institute, Heritage Foundation, ENOUGH Project, The World Bank, Kaiser Family Foundation, eweek.org, the U.N.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

OCTOBER 21, 2008

As many of you know, I have been using OpenOffice.org , the free and open source office suite since before it was OpenOffice.org. That would be when it was Star Office. That was a long time ago. So I’ve seen it develop and change (and helped a tiny, tiny little bit along the way by submitting bugs.). The Apple OS has been the poor stepchild when it comes to OpenOffice.org for a long time.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

OCTOBER 25, 2008

Technology really is becoming an incredible tool for empowering the poor. Whenever I see a great example of this, I get excited. Vital Wave Consulting covers the opportunities in serving developing markets and one of their blog posts really grabbed me. In M-Pesa is our hippo! we get to hear the story of a cell phone banking service that gives the poor effective banking services in Kenya when the country's banks have declined to serve them.

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Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

OCTOBER 8, 2008

Last week, I did at workshop for the Kellogg Action Lab College of Consultants. The participants were consultants who worked with nonprofits on organizational strategic planning, financial planning, evaluation, and other organizational capacity areas. It was a fantastic opportunity to learn what types of questions are raised about social media in the context of strategic planning with nonprofits.

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Organizations like yours are increasingly realizing that technology adoption is only as good as the technology you choose. Statistics from a 2014 NTEN study show that seriously investing resources in training for your staff corresponds to higher adoption and ultimately technology effectiveness. In this report, we’ll give you a high-level overview of how to get your organization in shape for technology adoption and best practices for facilitating this critical process.

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Wild Apricot

OCTOBER 30, 2008

NTEN Office Hours puts the experience and skills of nonprofit technology experts at your service in a free-access online question-and-answer chat session. The expert volunteers cover a wide range of tech topics of special interest to nonprofits: online, in real time.

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Have Fun - Do Good

OCTOBER 10, 2008

Here's my contribution to this month's Net2ThinkTank question posed by Amy Sample Ward, "What are the key questions nonprofit orgs should ask to help them determine how to prioritize social media training and experimentation as they do their technology and organization-strengthening planning?" 1. What are the goals you are trying to achieve this year?

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Forum One

OCTOBER 24, 2008

Scott Berkun at The Berkun Blog recently posted the results of an informal study he did on why designers fail. While he doesn't say it anywhere that I could find, he seems to mean "designers" in the narrow sense of "graphic designers." I think the conclusions probably map reasonably well to any sort of designer, i.e., technical architects, information architects, etc.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

OCTOBER 16, 2008

I think that if I had to pick only one thing that would help people understand the character of Drupal, it would be the WYSIWYG editor that comes standard with an out-of-the-box Drupal installation. That would be NONE. There is no standard WYSIWYG editor that comes with Drupal. You have to figure out how to find one, and install and configure it yourself.

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