Nonprofit Tech for Good

MARCH 24, 2010

“A survey of 200 charity and foundation professionals revealed that nonprofits are finding it difficult to determine how valuable social media tools are for their organizations. Seventy-nine percent said they hadn’t found ways to do so.” – Chronicle of Philanthropy, November 12, 2009. For those 79% of nonprofits out there, I have listed 10 social media metrics below that can be easily tracked and plotted on a Social Media Return on Investment (ROI) Spreadsheet ( Download ).

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Social Media Metrics Track Myspace 253

Amy Sample Ward

MARCH 14, 2010

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. We’ll be facilitating a conversation, more than doing a formal presentation, and will focus on the power of crowdsourcing (using our own case study from conducting the Social Media for Social Good case study competition) and the application of social media in nonprofit program delivery.

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Community Case Study Haiti Social Media 207

NetWits

MARCH 22, 2010

I spent some time with Randi Zuckerberg while at South by South West Interactive 2010. Randi works on a number of initiatives for Facebook – one of those being focused on Facebooks involvement in helping nonprofits. She also works on things related to marketing, politics and current events. All the while she acts as the unofficial Facebook correspondent for CNN.

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Facebook Interview Video Nonprofit 191

Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MARCH 7, 2010

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. PolicyTool for Social Media.

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Ubuntu Georgia Amazon NPO 153

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

Robert Weiner

MARCH 4, 2010

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 commissions as a fundraiser. There are so many things wrong with this pitch. Fundraising (at least in the U.S.) doesn't work this way -- commissions violate the Association of Fundraising Professionals' code of ethics.

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Haiti Fundraising Spam gMail 122

NCE Social Media

MARCH 18, 2010

Here’s a video that explains how to set up an event on Facebook at a fairly basic level. If you’ve done this previously with with success, please feel free to share your experiences in the comments section. Tags: Education and Training Facebook Video events facebook.

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Facebook Video Training Train 109

Amy Sample Ward

MARCH 24, 2010

I recently had the opportunity to connect with Ricard Espelt to learn more about the various projects he’s working on in Spain leveraging new technologies for public engagement, government transparency and community building. Learn more in the interview below. In Richard’s words: “I am a lucky man, and basically because I do not dare make mistakes, so correct.

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Interview Government Proposal Spain 155

NetWits

MARCH 30, 2010

While at South by South West Interactive (SXSWi) Amy Sample Ward spent some time talking with me about how NetSquared ( about ) serves the nonprofit industry. NetSquared is focused on the intersection of technology and social impact. Their mission is to help hundreds of thousands of non-profit organizations utilize the community empowering capabilities of the Internet to achieve social change.

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Netsquared Sample Interview Video 105

Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MARCH 23, 2010

As most of you know, I’m a very long time veteran of web application building. I’ve been involved in web application development basically since they started – when, when a cgi-bin folder with some perl scripts to process simple forms was the norm. Until just a few years ago, there was very little sophistication about the user experience in web applications – what mattered most was functionality. and to make sure there weren’t too many errors when users did unexpect

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Project Database Open Source Application 146

Robert Weiner

MARCH 5, 2010

I've had my Palm Pre Plus for a little over a month now. I wrote up my initial impressions after having it for a week. Overall, I love it except for Outlook sync. Sync. My major problem with the Pre is due to its lack of a built-in sync with a standalone/desktop copy of Outlook. If you don't use Outlook, or use it on an Exchange server, you might not have these problems.

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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

NCE Social Media

MARCH 1, 2010

Temple Grandin has been in the news recently because of the HBO movie about her life. She recently gave a talk as part of the TED series discussing how her mind and the mind of people with autism spectrum disorder works and what makes them tick. Are you allowing people with disabilities, the people you serve, to help you in your on-line efforts? Are you using them in a focus group to get their feedback on the marketing you do?

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Hints Movie Mind Training 109

Nonprofit Tech for Good

MARCH 2, 2010

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 the ad. The results are below: 1. Purchasing advertising did not increase my fan base or help my Status Updates show up in the News Feed > Top News.

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Facebook Results Experiment Organization 215

Amy Sample Ward

MARCH 16, 2010

This is cross-posted from the #4Change blog here. From the newest member of the #4Change team, ChristinasWorld : In the wake of South by Southwest in Austin, and in anticipation of some exciting social media and social change gatherings coming up on the 2010 events calendar, we thought it could be useful to explore How Social Media Can Enhance Events as the topic for the March #4change chat.

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Social Media Media Social Offline 135

NetWits

MARCH 18, 2010

We Can End This is a yearlong initiative focused on sparking innovation and broader engagement in the movement to end hunger in America. It's official kickoff went down at South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive 2010 much like the Pledge to End Hunger did in 2009. On top of unvailing the new movement at SXSW a new website was launched and a frontpage promotion was put on Mashable.com.

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Hunger Pledge America Picture 105

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

Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MARCH 24, 2010

Lobo’s comment on my post yesterday prompted me to complete this blog entry that I’ve been ruminating on for a while. I wrote a blog entry a while back on the state of Drupal/Salesforce integration. What I didn’t say is that a number of shops that have done Drupal/SF integration for production sites chose not to use the contributed modules – they built (or are building) their own custom Salesforce/Drupal integration modules.

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Module Drupal Open Source Integration 141

Judi Sohn

MARCH 29, 2010

via youtube.com. Tomorrow is butt-in day! Even with health care reform, and no matter how you feel about that, we still need action. Please do me a big favor and call your Rep tomorrow. We're looking for House co-sponsors for HR 1189, a bill that will extend Medicare benefits for colorectal cancer screening and treatment to those who are low income and/or under-insured.

Cancer 100

Cancer Sponsor Model Comment 100

VisionLink

MARCH 28, 2010

'We are pleased to announce another tool for those managing Homeless Coalitions, funded by HUD (US Department of Housing and Urban Development). The AHAR now allows users to run the report for Veterans Only (or, as previously, for all non-veterans as well. The AHAR tool is designed to assist Continuum of Care jurisdictions in preparing data to submit to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development for their annual report to the US Congress.

Homeless 100

Homeless Management Integration Report 100

Nonprofit Tech for Good

MARCH 1, 2010

March’s theme is Modern and Contemporary Art. Below are 5 museums throughout the world that are creatively utilizing social media: Twitter: Museo de Arte Contemporáneo in Lima. Facebook: Moscow Museum of Modern Art. YouTube: Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. MySpace: Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney. Flickr: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The nonprofits above are featured throughout the month of March on the Nonprofit Organizations Twitter Profile , the Nonprofit Organizations Facebook Pag

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Arts San Francisco Myspace Museum 180

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

Amy Sample Ward

MARCH 30, 2010

The SXSW Interactive Festival in Austin, TX, was a blast this year, due in no small part to the huge honor of speaking on a panel with Beth Kanter, Dave Neff, Holly Ross and Kari Saratovsky. Beth facilitated a conversation, among the panelists as well as the standing-room-only room of participants, that focused on the power of crowdsourcing and the application of social media in nonprofit program delivery.

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Change Austin Netsquared Social 123

NetWits

MARCH 1, 2010

Blackbaud is offering a free web seminar series to help nonprofits build strategies for mobilizing, soliciting, and stewarding supporters during and after times of disaster. Blackbaud experts and partners developed the seminars based off of their work with nonprofit customers who responded to the Haiti earthquake. The series, entitled “Lessons Learned from Haiti,” includes five seminars that will take place March through May.

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Blackbaud Web Haiti Disaster 102

Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MARCH 16, 2010

I’ve been doing a bit of playing around with Drupal 7 in my copious spare time (not a whole lot of that!) I’ve also been keeping track, a bit of how the development process is going, and what things will look like. One thing to say – it feels like as big an improvement as Drupal 6 was to Drupal 5. Of course, mostly, Drupal is only as good as it’s contributed modules (that’s a bit more of a stretch, now, because many of the key contributed modules, like CCK, are now

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Drupal Module Open Source Site 141

Judi Sohn

MARCH 29, 2010

via youtube.com. Tomorrow is butt-in day! Even with health care reform, and no matter how you feel about that, we still need action. Please do me a big favor and call your Rep tomorrow. We're looking for House co-sponsors for HR 1189, a bill that will extend Medicare benefits for colorectal cancer screening and treatment to those who are low income and/or under-insured.

Cancer 100

Cancer Sponsor Model Comment 100

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

VisionLink

MARCH 22, 2010

'We recently launched one of our new customer''s sites, and our lead contact there sent back a wonderful note: "I''d like to say what a pleasure it''s been, working with your staff. [They] have been amazing. At all times, they have maintained the sense of confidence and of support that our technology team felt from day one. The availability and expertise of your staff is so appreciated.

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Contact Integration International Team 100

Wild Apricot

MARCH 9, 2010

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. Challenged by online alternative news sources, print newspapers are slimming down, cutting pages to cut their costs.

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Local Offline Alternative Profit 116

Amy Sample Ward

MARCH 9, 2010

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 post below. —– A new report from the team at Forrester came out last week: Tapping The Entire Online Peer Influence Pyramid. 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 membe

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Influence Giving Broadcast Empowerment 114

NetWits

MARCH 23, 2010

Deciding what you want to put on your the homepage of your Facebook fan page, and what you want people to be confronted with when they hit the site initially, is very important.

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Facebook Build Site People 100

Advertisement

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.

Nonprofit

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

MARCH 29, 2010

Today, I stumbled across another reason why I'd like to blow up online contests that use "vote for me" or popularity to make funding decisions. If a contest or program does not lead with social outcomes and if big money is thrown on the table, it encourages social innovation of another kind. Looking for loop holes in the contest rules. In December, the Pepsi Refresh Contest was hailed as the boldest experiment so far of the number of social good contests over the past three years that have us

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Contest Social Application Guidelines 112

Judi Sohn

MARCH 18, 2010

Google Voice's attempts at transcribing voicemails never fail to entertain. The actual message from my husband was: "Hi honey, it's me. Call me back please. Thank you." And Google Voice thought he said: tee hee. Permalink.

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Voice Google Comment 100

VisionLink

MARCH 18, 2010

'Responding to revised specifications from HUD, we are pleased to release a revised Quarterly Progress Report. The logic tables have been updated to the revised specifications, ensuring accurate and useful reporting tools for Homeless Management users. There is more! We have also improved the data set up process for HMIS records related to the QPR, and cleaned up several data entry steps.

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Homeless Management Report Data 100

Wild Apricot

MARCH 20, 2010

In a recent TechSoup webinar, Allen Gunn, Executive Director of Aspiration, suggested a simple and effective process for planning your organization's online communications, using a simple spreadsheet template to create a monthly Publishing Matrix.( read more ). Tags: Non-profit technology nptech E-mail marketing Blogging Non-profit Communications websites spreadsheets webinar social media.

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Web Template Mail Profit 106

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Association executives—and hopefully their boards—know that they are facing perilous times. Driven by the pace of cultural and technological change, they are experiencing major disruptions in the traditional business models that used to guide organizational growth strategies.orgSource offers a straightforward approach to navigating these changes and readying your organization for growth.

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