January, 2009

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Lovin’ on Ravelry

Judi Sohn

As a recently-returned-to-the-fold knitting geek , I’ve been amazed by Ravelry. It’s incredible. TechCrunch didn’t take it seriously. Condescending attitude aside, they should. As of right now, the site has 258,711 users and counting, with thousands online at the same time. These aren’t geeks trying out the new online toy. For the most part, these are people who take their hobby very seriously.

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Beyond the Basics: Taking Five Website Staples to the Next Level

NetWits

I'm excited to report that I've been invited to speak on the American Marketing Association radio program next Wednesday, February 4, at 11am Central Time. The program, Beyond the Basics: Taking Five Website Staples to the Next Level , will focus on the amazing benefits you'll experience if you make the investment in optimizing your website in just a few key areas.

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Why I Love the Caltech Y

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

I recently was invited to give a talk at my alma mater, Caltech. The talk was hosted by the Caltech Y, as well as by the local chapter of NetImpact and the alumni association, as part of their Social Activism Speaker Series (SASS). I was particularly thrilled that Martin Luther King was an earlier speaker hosted by the Y in the area of social activism!

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Great reads from January 12th through January 14th

Amy Sample Ward

These are my links for January 12th through January 14th: Network For Good - The audience for this 45-page guide is small nonprofits who need help launching a great online fundraising or marketing campaign in quick order. The guide features 12 real-life strategies organizations are using right now to succeed during the downturn, in addition to tons of great tactical advice, creative samples and other resources.

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The Retention Ripple Effect: Nonprofit Staff and Donor Dynamics

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.

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Facebook Profiles and Pages and Groups, oh my!

Wild Apricot

If questions from our readers are any indication, there’s still a lot of confusion about the differences between Facebook’s Profiles, Fan Pages, and Groups — and which of these might best suit a nonprofit’s social-networking plan. Let’s take a closer look. Facebook was conceived as a social network of individuals, so everything starts with the individual Profile.

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Nonprofit Technology Resolutions for 2009

Robert Weiner

In early January, Convio asked a group of nonprofit technology bloggers to suggest New Year’s resolutions for nonprofits ( TechSoup Blog was one of the participants ). In addition, they asked people to post resolutions on Convio’s Connection Café blog. Subsequently, they reviewed the resolutions, identified the main topic areas, and created a Resolutions Guide.

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Getting Your (Marketing) Ducks in a Row in 2009

NetWits

My colleague, Nicholai Burton, posted a terrific blog entry last month about ways for cultural organizations to thrive in a down economy. While he spoke specifically on ways to engage patrons, his ideas can be relevant to all types of nonprofit organizations. As a marketer, my favorite suggestion was his first, to “know thy audience.” As I regularly discuss in consultations and presentations, the better you can understand your audience, the better you can relate with them through your communicat

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CiviCRM and Drupal (& Joomla)

Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

CiviCRM was the first nonprofit-focused open source CRM (one of only two, at this moment.) It is a great tool for small to medium-sized organizations who are looking for a CRM to track members and donations, register people for events, and do mass mailings. There are also some other features, like grants management and case management that are more nascent, but promising for the future.

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5-Part Social Media Process

Amy Sample Ward

There are a TON of lists out there that identify the top _# of things to do for really anything you want to explore (whether it’s building a model or building an organization). I’ve been thinking about these lists in terms of adopting social media tools and think that most of the lists are hitting on the same exact things. So, why recreate the wheel over and over when the core theory is the same?

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The New Bookshare has Launched!

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

Over the weekend just ended we successfully launched the completely rebuilt Bookshare website. The original Bookshare website and service was created over seven years ago, and has served us well. But, our new Bookshare for Education project with its likely prospect of increasing our student users one hundredfold meant we needed a rebuild. I'm also excited about our new logo!

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How to Design a Seamless & Personalized Digital Donor Journey

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.

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New listing of big gifts

Robert Weiner

Jay Frost of ContactReporter.com (formerly of WealthID) has started a new blog that will track large individual gifts to all types of charities in the US and abroad: www.BigGifts.wordpress.com. Tags: Prospect Research Fundraising.

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Don’t you hate it when your database goes poof?

Judi Sohn

Not a fun Friday. At some point yesterday morning, my WordPress database disappeared and was replaced with a default WordPress install. It looked like this in Safari: That tiny print is the copy that’s on a default WordPress installation, but with the Thesis theme I use applied to it…kind of. I couldn’t log in to wp-admin. More troubling, the title of the blog was changed to a funky spam link.

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Creating a Social Media Policy for Your Nonprofit

Wild Apricot

Who should speak for your organization in social media? How can you control what’s being said about your group and your cause? If you're not sure, it may be time to work out a social media policy for your staff and volunteers who blog and chat and comment online, where the personal and professional lines often blur.( read more ). Tags: media Social networking Best practices General non-profit interest Non-profit technology Non-profit Communications nptech.

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Integration of CMS and CRM - Preamble

Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

As I talked about in my last post, there are a variety of strategies one can use to move data between your CMS and your CRM. I’m going to choose a few examples to look at in some depth. Some of these are examples I’ve been working with clients on, or I’ve played with, some are just examples I know about, but are prominent, useful examples to talk about.

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Nonprofits Are Leveraging the Cloud, but Does It Have to Be So Complex?

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.

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January Net2 Think Tank: Predictions for 2009

Amy Sample Ward

Originally posted on the NetSquared blog. This month’s Net2 Think Tank question was, “What do you think will be the big changes, new technologies, hot applications, or successful campaigns of 2009?” We had a great collection of contributions this month. Take a look at the posts below—many great conversation starters to get you thinking and buzzing about what 2009 will bring.

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Ice911: a new take on solving the climate crisis

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

I'm always interested in fresh approaches to social problems. The global climate crisis is one that is engaging a lot of creative brainpower. I've been tracking local researcher Leslie Field and her Ice911 concept for more than a year. It's still in stealth mode, but I got Leslie's permission to blog about it. Leslie was motivated by seeing An Inconvenient Truth to think about a new way to help reduce global warming.

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Inside the Mind of a Top Donor

Robert Weiner

The Chronicle of Philanthropy recently conducted an online discussion with Lorry I. Lokey, who has appeared on The Chronicle’s list of America’s top donors every year since 2000. Mr. Lokey responded to questions such as. What is the biggest mistake development officers make when first meeting a new prospect? How could a small institution with big aspirations engage donors with significant financial capability?

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Help me go to the NTC!

Judi Sohn

I was disappointed when it was announced that the NTEN NTC would be in San Francisco this year. The NTC is the nonprofit technology conference. I loved it last year in New Orleans. The sessions I attended were outstanding, and very easy to adapt to the way our small nonprofit can get more out of the tools we use. Less focus on consultants and high-budget solutions.

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Nonprofit Technology Kick Start: Free World Class Board Meeting Software

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.

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My New Year's Resolution: Use Social Media Efficiently - 52 Tips

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

Flickr Photo by RedRaspu Convio invited me to share my number one New Year's resolution as part of its "Now is the Time" campaign. The goal is to encourage nonprofits to make New Year's resolutions to that help them more efficiently and effectively move people to support their organizations. On January 1st, I wrote about my goals for 2009 using Chris Brogan's process of selecting three words or larger concepts to frame them.

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Looking forward to NTC 2009

Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

I love NTC (NTEN’s Nonprofit Technology Conference). I would be dishonest if I said I didn’t have a sweet reminiscence for the Circiut Rider Roundups of old. But they are long gone. As fields often do, ours grew up and professionalized. And what has taken it’s place is valuable to a much wider audience (and a much larger one!) And, this year, for the very first time, I live in the same city in which NTC is taking place.

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My Social Actions - is it yours, too?

Amy Sample Ward

Social Actions , the platform that makes it easy for individuals and organizations to share actions across the web, has just launched it’s Ning-powered social network: My.SocialActions. The social network side of Social Actions is an exciting venture - it’s a way to make actions more personal and track the actions your participate in or start.

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Should You Delete Old Blog Posts or Website Content?

Wild Apricot

The more information you've published online, the better the chances that your organization's blog or website will be found by potential readers, right? That's true, yes, as far as it goes — quantity counts when each indexed page might be the answer to some web-surfer's search query. But the quality of information that readers find on your blog or website is what will help or hinder your organization's cause in the long run.

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Donor Engagement Guide: 8 Key Steps to Better Retain and Engage Donors

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!

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The Economy May Be Down, but Online Giving Is Up

Robert Weiner

M+R Strategic Services says that although the economy is down, online giving is up (as of November 2008). They looked at online giving for five nonprofit clients during September and October (Easter Seals, Habitat for Humanity International, National Multiple Sclerosis Society, Oxfam America, and The Wilderness Society) and compared those results to the same two months in 2007.

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iPhone Apps for Nonprofits

Have Fun - Do Good

"Someone should create an iPhone app that allows you to donate $1.99 to a nonprofit," my husband said the other day over lunch. "Most people are willing to spend $1.99 on an iPhone application, even if they aren't sure they'll like it, or use it. What if a group of nonprofits got together and created an application where you could donate to one, or all of the groups, each month through your iTunes account?

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The New ROI -- Listen, Learn, Adapt: Return on Insights from David Armano

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

Photo by Jeff Pulver David Armano has an article on BusinessWeek called " The New Focus Group: The Collective " where he urges companies using social media to make the last word in ROI insight, not investment. The process is: Listen, Learn, Adapt. He is describing what an organization with a " learning organization " culture does and applying it to social media.

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Integration of CRM and CMS

Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

Home About Me Subscribe Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology Thoughtful and sometimes snarky perspectives on nonprofit technology Integration of CRM and CMS January 14, 2009 If there are two acronyms that are at the center of nonprofit communications, it’s these two, CRM (Constituent Relationship Management – and I’m making this broad enough to include fundraising) and CMS (Content Management System).

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Nonprofit Technology Adoption: Why It Matters and How to Be Successful

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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Building Blocks of Social Media - Webinar slides and notes

Amy Sample Ward

Today was the first webinar in the Storytelling & Social Media series from NTEN and TechSoup Global. I’m happy to say that I had the great honor of serving as the speaker for the webinar and had a ton of fun. It’s always a little weird to talk over the phone and not be able to hear or see those you are presenting to, but everyone was really great with comments and questions and responding online so I knew I wasn’t talking to myself!

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Motivating Your Volunteers: Needs, Barriers, and Psychology 101

Wild Apricot

Finding ways to reward and motivate volunteers is a perpetual challenge for nonprofits. We can create opportunities to volunteer that meet the needs of our supporters, or we can remove the barriers that keep them from volunteering. Ideally, we’ll do both - but removing the barriers must come first, if volunteer activities are to compete for time and attention in a busy world.( read more ).

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Early-Bird Discount on the Nonprofit Technology Conference Ends 1/31

Robert Weiner

The early-bird registration period for NTEN’s 2009 Nonprofit Technology Conference ends January 31. I love the NTC. Here’s what the NTEN folks have to say about it: In addition to the scores of breakout sessions, the networking, camaraderie, and general nptech-related good times, noted author Clay Shirky will be the keynote speaker at the 2009 NTC, coming up in San Francisco, April 26-28.

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The Three Dimensions of Social Media ROI

NTEN

Flickr Photo: zadro. Beth Kanter and NTEN have spent almost a whole year working on the We Are Media project, and we've learned a few important things. Chief among them: return on investment is really hard to determine. It's a three-dimensional picture, but we've been trying to render it in two-dimensional tools. . If you've worked on any sort of campaign, you know there are three key pieces to creating change: Mobilizing your base to take action Recruiting new people to your base Inserting yo

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Achieving Organizational Transformation: Pathways to Success

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.