Nonprofit Tech for Good

JUNE 11, 2010

A really simple, but crucial upgrade… but also potentially problematic. Facebook Page Admins can now remove other Admins – including the Page’s original creator. Nonprofits (and businesses) have been requesting this functionality for years. It is often the case that the original Page creator is a long-gone volunteer, intern or staff member, yet they continue to have access and control over a nonprofit’s Facebook Page because the functionality to remove them as an Admin di

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Amy Sample Ward

JUNE 13, 2010

This morning I had the great opportunity to present to the Next Generation Philanthropy course, a part of Institute for Philanthropy, here in London. It was a diverse set of participants and we probably could have talked all day had they not had a full day’s program to get through! The talk: My talk may not be as easily captured in the slides as some of my other talks are since this was a smaller group and I had the time to dive into each example and discuss it with the participants, inste

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NetWits

JUNE 24, 2010

Our social media strategy for nonprofits series continues by taking a look at how the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network ( www.pancan.org ) uses social media to enhance their online efforts. This organization is dedicated to advancing research, supporting patients and creating hope for those affected by pancreatic cancer. As you can imagine, building a great online presence that creates a community of support and connects people with each other plays a key role in carrying out their mission.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JUNE 23, 2010

Statement of Benetech to the 20th Session of the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights at the World Intellectual Property Organization June 23, 2010, Geneva, Switzerland • My nonprofit organization, Benetech, operates Bookshare, the largest online library for people with print disabilities, with the mission of bringing accessible books to all people with print disabilities around the world • We have roughly 100,000 members in the U.S. with print disabilities, with more than 70,000 c

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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

Robert Weiner

JUNE 3, 2010

Yesterday I spoke on a fundraising panel at Compasspoint's Silicon Valley/Peninsula Nonprofit Forum and mentioned a variety of resources. Here they are, with links: Donor Retention. AFP's Fundraising Effectiveness Project: [link]. The Agitator’s post “No New Donors!&# [link]. Attracting New Donors. “Homer Simpson for Nonprofits: The Truth about How People Really Think and What It Means for Promoting Your Cause&#.

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Resource eBook Social Media ROI 138

Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JUNE 21, 2010

Again, a little peak at what I’ve been up to, reading, and thinking about. You can also see what I’ve been reading by looking at my shared items on my google profile. Mule ESB – Open Source ESB Community w. Documentation | Mule ESB Community – an interesting and intriguing data integration tool built on the Java stack. SoqlXplorer – a Mac OS X tool for browsing Salesforce.com data.

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Amy Sample Ward

JUNE 11, 2010

My latest Stanford Social Innovation Review opinion piece is up and copied below. You can read and comment on the original post here. —– There’s been some interesting discussion about Apple, donations and This American Life ’s iPhone application lately that I want to touch on. Not because I’m really all that invested in either pro- or anti- Apple camp, and not because I love This American Life (which I do – and yes, I have donated).

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NetWits

JUNE 8, 2010

You might have read about the recent changes Facebook made. Or maybe you’ve seen changes appearing on one of the sites you frequently visit - there are over 100,000 of them out there. But you may not know how to get started using them yourself. Of all the things Facebook did, nonprofits should pay most attention to Facebook for Web Sites - a new platform that enables you to use Facebooks social plugins to enhance your organizations website.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JUNE 24, 2010

A hot topic at the SCCR20/WIPO discussions in Geneva on global access to materials by the print disabilities is the term "Trusted Intermediaries"("TIs"). This was first introduced (to my knowledge) in the Stakeholder's Platform discussions, which were the quickly ginned-up alternative option created in response to the original introduction at WIPO of the Treaty for the Visually Impaired ("TVI") by Brazil, Ecuador and Paraguay (and now co-sponsored by Mexico).

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Authoring Paraguay Law Copyright 150

Robert Weiner

JUNE 2, 2010

I just spoke on a fundraising panel at Compasspoint's Silicon Valley/Peninsula Nonprofit Forum. One takeaway: some California cities are finding that they need to raise private funds to make up for cuts in State and local funding. This means thinking and acting like nonprofits. The city department in question has no board and no staff who know how to solicit donations.

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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

Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JUNE 30, 2010

I’ve been getting to know Amazon S3 lately, and there are some great things about it. I think it is one of the long list of unpredicted successes that resulted from the near-ubiquitousness of open source software on the server side. We’ve been using it for “offsite&# backup for drupal sites for a while now. We have a script going which runs by cron daily to do the backups.

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Nonprofit Tech for Good

JUNE 14, 2010

An online database of Twitter Apps called oneforty currently lists almost 2,900 third-party Twitter Apps. While some nonprofits have been early adopters of Twitter Apps, the vast majority are not. They may not even know the tools exist. Once you start browsing around and experimenting, you’ll quickly come to realize that there are a phenominal number of free Twitter tools now available to nonprofits – that can also be used to improve website, e-newsletter, blogging, and social media

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Amy Sample Ward

JUNE 18, 2010

I often talk about individuals when I’m discussing the way social media can be used to support organizations. Why? Because social media may be about networks, communities, and collaboration; but it is only possible because of the dynamic and powerful tools individuals are using. Social networks are built from all the content individuals share.

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NetWits

JUNE 28, 2010

When push comes to shove, there are really only two different social networking strategies for nonprofits: Reaching out and rounding up. You are reaching out when you extend your organization into existing networks, building your brand off-site and tapping into the existing user base of The Usual Suspects (1). Rounding up, as you've no doubt already guessed, consists of creating social networking activity on your own site, on your own white-labeled (or private-labeled, same thing) social network

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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

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JUNE 8, 2010

A Policy Update from an engineer, Jim Fruchterman of Benetech June 8, 2010 The international copyright negotiations in Geneva around a proposed Treaty for the Visually Impaired (“TVI”) have been steadily heating up. Counterproposals have been made, governments have been engaging with rights holders, consumers and NGOs (or not!) and there’s a general feeling something is going to happen.

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Robert Weiner

JUNE 9, 2010

Jay Love, the founder and CEO of eTapestry (and before that, of Master Software), is leaving Blackbaud to become CEO of Social Solutions: [link]. I spoke with Jay yesterday and he says that Blackbaud is committed to etapestry and will continue to invest in the product. Time will tell. Tags: Donor Databases.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JUNE 30, 2010

I’ve been spending a fair bit of time in the last couple of years learning to code in a new way. It reminds me of a transition I made in coding from having written stand-alone applications for varied computers, to writing code for the web. When I was in college, grad school and early in my academic career (this dates me – from the early 80s to early 90s), I spent a lot of time writing stand-alone applications, mostly in Pascal and C.

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Nonprofit Tech for Good

JUNE 28, 2010

Foursquare now has 1.6 million users. That may not seem like very many compared to Facebook’s 465 million users, but Foursquare is only one year-old and growing quickly. Part social networking site, part smartphone App, Foursquare is a tool meant to be primary used on the go on your smartphone. Quite simply, you “Check-in” to venues while physically at the venue and offer “Tips” and send out “Shouts”.

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Advertiser: Syncrony

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Nonprofit

Amy Sample Ward

JUNE 29, 2010

Today I had the great pleasure and honor of presenting at the National Conference on Service and Volunteering. I had a 90-minute workshop which was broken into two parts: a bit of presentation, and a bit of game time. The presentation focused on 4 strategic steps, 3 sets of best practices, and a few case studies for creating programs, services, content, and campaigns in a community-driven process.

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NetWits

JUNE 9, 2010

Say that 10 times. Now ask me what it means? It means that the Confirmation Pages one receives after completing a transaction (donating, registering, updating profiles, email preferences, event registrations, advocacy actions, etc) are an open door in which we're losing engagement opportunities with constituents.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JUNE 15, 2010

I'm now on the road for more than 5 weeks on combo business trips and family vacation. DC this week and Geneva next week (international copyright). As I headed out the door, I ran into Scott Rains and we had a picture taken of Scott in his Brazil jersey (after the U.S., I'm a big Brazil fan too). Scott is helping with the Bookshare volunteer community as a Benetech Fellow.

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NCE Social Media

JUNE 21, 2010

Every wonder how your Twitter postings influences others? Free online tools such as Klout analyze your use of Twitter and gives you recommendations to be more influential. Try it out and see what ideas it may spawn… Influence. Tags: Education and Training Marketing and Awareness twitter klout influence.

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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

Wild Apricot

JUNE 29, 2010

There’s no more convenient way to brush up on your skills than to do your professional development online - and July 2010 brings us lots of free online presentations and seminars for fundraisers, board members, administrators, active volunteers, volunteer coordinators, and other non-profit folks.( read more ). Tags: Non-profit technology General non-profit interest Fundraising nptech Marketing Volunteers events Social networking Non-profit Communications training Membership management Donor mana

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Nonprofit Tech for Good

JUNE 22, 2010

Last week the Nonprofit Organizations Facebook Page reached the 10,000 fans milestone. It took 2.5 years. In 2008, many of the friends of the Nonprofit Organizations MySpace migrated over to Facebook, then in 2009 and 2010 a good number of the new fans came from @NonprofitOrgs on Twitter. One website may lose its popularity for the next, but I have found that your friends, fans and followers move with you to next one.

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Amy Sample Ward

JUNE 6, 2010

(This post was originally posted on the Beautiful World blog, here.). This coming Thursday is the next NFPTweetup , taking place at JustGiving ’s new offices. As part of a blog series leading up to the event, I was asked to share some thoughts on the event, especially for those coming along for the first time that may not know what to expect.

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NetWits

JUNE 23, 2010

My college sorority and millions of others definitively did not participate in Quit Facebook Day ! They actually took the opposite approach. I received an email that stated they would be shutting down their online community that resides within their main site and moving their online community to Facebook.

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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.

Nonprofit

VisionLink

JUNE 24, 2010

'BRACE, "Be Ready Alliance Coordinating for Emergencies," is sponsoring it''s annual luncheon next week, June 29th, downtown Pensacola Florida. Dr. Steve Picou will be presenting on the sociological impact of disasters. Yours truly will also be presenting, focusing on the efficacies of multi-agency partnerships, and their ability to leverage resources--all the more important in the current economy.

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NCE Social Media

JUNE 11, 2010

Do you ever wonder about the future of computing and how social media may fit into it? There are quite a few web-based resources that you can access to read about predictions and research of the future that is happening now. I wanted to share some links with you that address this issue. The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project studies has some very insightful research that you can read.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JUNE 21, 2010

I'm here in Geneva for the 20th Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights meeting. This is the international forum for discussing copyright issues, and it is the body considering the Treaty for the Visually Impaired (TVI). Jamie Love of KEI took the above picture of ACB's Eric Bridges, NFB's Scott LaBarre (and his wife Anahit Galechyan) and me at the meeting: I was busy tweeting what I was hearing at my Twitter handle of @JRandomF.

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Nonprofit Tech for Good

JUNE 30, 2010

To make it easier and more affordable for individuals to attend multiple DIOSA Communications webinars without locking in dates at the time of purchase, attendees can now purchase webinar credits at discounted rates and redeem them quickly and easily when they are ready to register for an upcoming webinar. Credits need not be redeemed by the same person.

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Associations