NetWits

APRIL 2, 2011

We’re all focused on the non-profit space, but some times it’s good to take a look at how the internet is being used on a broader scale. It helps give us perspective and challenges our thinking which leads to potentially making decisions differently. So here’s a few recent stats for you to chew on … 78% of Internet users conduct product research online. 78% of business people use their mobile device to check email. 40% of US smartphone owners compare prices on their mobil

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Nonprofit Tech for Good

APRIL 7, 2011

Integrating your nonprofit’s Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 campaigns is essential for success in online communications and fundraising. Rather that keeping them separate, once they are merged to compliment one another, your nonprofit’s ROI begins to grow exponentially. To begin, here are five ways to integrate social media into your nonprofit’s website: 1) Add social networking icons to your homepage.

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Amy Sample Ward

APRIL 5, 2011

Last week, the New York Times ran an article exploring a segment of the nonprofit/social impact sector that the author saw as a small minority of organizations, but one I care deeply about: those that plan to go out of business. The article featured Malaria No More, and their vision of the project’s work: to end Malaria. Here’s an excerpt: Most notable, perhaps, is Malaria No More, a popular nonprofit that supplies bed nets in malaria zones.

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Change New York Exercise Chapter 203

Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

APRIL 7, 2011

There are some very interesting comparisons to make in this realm, and, I’d say first off, that the proprietary tools are in the lead, for sure. I’ll start with basic graphics – graphic manipulation tools. Of course, on the proprietary side is the ever present and predominant Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. And, honestly, they are very good tools, and considered industry standards.

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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

NetWits

APRIL 6, 2011

Meet Patty Huber. She leads social innovation at Groupon – the daily deals site that’s been given the title of “ fastest growing web company ever “ If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of daily deals here’s a simple way to think of it: “You and thousands of other subscribers opt-in to receive daily deals of 50% or more off on food, clothes, gyms, theme parks, etc, and the daily deal company (in this case Groupon) send businesses ton of new customers.&#

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Nonprofit Tech for Good

APRIL 4, 2011

Unlike the Q&A site Quora, Facebook Questions allows brands to ask and answer questions. On Quora you have to be a person, but Facebook Questions uses your nonprofit’s Page and avatar as your Facebook Questions identity. Quora is great for professionals and those that want to spend time building their personal brand online, but I think Facebook’s decision to allow brands to use Questions was smart.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

APRIL 6, 2011

One of the great memories I have of last week's Skoll World Forum is Willy Foote of Root Capital kicking off the Skoll Convening (the grantee meeting just before the Forum) with this ash-cloud inspired song: “Floating in this Cloud” How can I scale the impact of my work? Should I partner or go it alone? How many funders do I really need? And how many miles have I flown?

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

APRIL 3, 2011

HipHop for PHP. tags: php webdev toblog opensource. MailChimp | drupal.org. tags: drupal modules toblog. [link]. tags: CMS opensource report toblog. CUBRID – Open Source Database Management System Optimized for Web. tags: opensource database toblog. Hudson Continuous Integration. tags: testing java toblog webdev. Open Source ETL designed to bridge the gap between business and IT. | Kettle Project: Pentaho Data Integration. tags: opensource etl data integration toblog.

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NetWits

APRIL 3, 2011

Earlier this year, in February, Google launched its latest search update in the US: Google Panda (or the Farmer update.). This update was designed to weed content farms out of search results. Content farms are websites that tend to have a variety of content, but most of it is ‘shallow’ and lacking in depth, which often makes the content useless for an internet user conducting a search.

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Amy Sample Ward

APRIL 7, 2011

South by Southwest ( SXSW ) Interactive is a conference, that takes place each Spring in Austin, TX, with over 20,000 web influencers, emerging tech, and creatives. Last month, the Japan earthquake and tsunami occurred on March 11th 2011, the first day of the conference. SXSWcares , co-branded as SXSW4Japan, was a campaign that rallied the SXSW community to raise awareness and harness support for disaster relief.

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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

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

APRIL 7, 2011

Thanks to commenter Differance bringing up in response to to our last post on this topic that made me want to take a new tack. You're absolutely right that information quality comes from people and that data's fitness for a particular purpose is very contextual. To continue in this direction, let’s look at how people use this information. The people who are in most need of information about humanitarian disasters are the organized responders.

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Picture Data Disaster Map 140

Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

APRIL 6, 2011

If I got a dollar for every time I heard something like: “we’re trying to choose between Ruby on Rails and Drupal for our new website&# or “our developer convinced us to do our new website in Ruby on Rails and we can’t update it,&# I wouldn’t be rich, but I’d have some money for a very nice meal at an expensive restaurant.

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Robert Weiner

APRIL 2, 2011

For those of you who noticed some strange posts here lately, please accept my apologies. My blog automatically scoops up anything I write on TechSoup's blog. TechSoup just launched a new blog and it messed up my automated scooper-upper. I've been deleting the posts when they appear while trying to fix the problem. In the meantime I've turned off this feature.

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Amy Sample Ward

APRIL 8, 2011

Do you believe you can change the world? That’s the question I asked this morning on Qriously, a new application that measures public sentiment, in real time. It works by replacing ads with questions in smartphone and tablet apps. The application is currently in a closed beta, and I was lucky enough to get access to start playing around with it.

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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

VisionLink

APRIL 2, 2011

'Public users searching for resources, services and other community assets are about to enjoy a powerfully effective search algorithm, and a new interface as well. Released to our customers for review, each of our customers can now review their own online resource directory with these new tools and provide feedback before we release this into production.

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Wild Apricot

APRIL 7, 2011

National Volunteer Week takes place April 10 - 16, 2011 in Canada and the US. Here are some ideas and links to help your organization celebrate.( read more ).

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Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

APRIL 7, 2011

Note from Beth: I love when I discovered folks who are community organizers and successfully transfer what they know about community organizing offline to the online world. Robin shared some of her thoughts in the comments of a recent blog post, and I invited to share her community organizing rules for Twitter. Enjoy. As a community organizer, Twitter makes a lot of sense.

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Amy Sample Ward

APRIL 8, 2011

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 April 8th). You can join the conversations in the comments, or click through to the original posts to find what others are saying. To follow more of the things I find online, you can follow @amysampleward on Twitter (which is just a blog and resource feed), or find me on Delicious (for all kinds of bookmarks).

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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

Robert Weiner

APRIL 2, 2011

Web-based service for one or two users to create presentations and share them online securely.

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Web Service Online Share 100

Wild Apricot

APRIL 5, 2011

Here is a round-up of recently released reports and resources available free of charge that might be of interest to non-profit and membership organizations. This post offers an overview of NTEN's eNon-profits Benchmark Study and 2011 Social Benchmarks Report and Idealware's Donor Management System Workbook.( read more ).

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Profit Resource Report Free 111

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

APRIL 6, 2011

I’ve been a little obsessed with using sticky notes in workshops as a reflection and visualizing tool for network and social media strategies. At a recent all-day workshop, I used them to help participants consolidate what the learned in the morning. Photographing them has been an excellent source of engaging micro-content for my Facebook Page and has prompted some excellent discussions and insights on the topic.

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NTEN

APRIL 4, 2011

By Amy Potthast, Director, Service and Graduate Programs, Idealist As a non-techie, I think I can safely say that a hiring nonprofit's current staff may have so little technical knowledge, they don't even know what skills are needed to do a job they want done. This lack of clarity on the employer's part can translate into some confusion and challenges on your part when you apply for a nonprofit job.

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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

Care2

APRIL 4, 2011

When your nonprofit tells a powerful story that inspires your members, or even a funny one that makes them laugh, you establish a human connection no matter what channel you use to share it. "It’s global connective tissue", said Stacey Monk, co-founder of Epic Change , who was part of the panel Up Close and Personal: How Storytelling Builds Movements at NTC along with Mark Horvath of Invisible People , Estrella Rosenberg of Big Love, Little Hearts , and moderated by Avi Kaplan of Rad Campa

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Storytelling Personal NTC Policy 76

Wild Apricot

APRIL 4, 2011

This is the final post in our 3-part Membership Database Selection blog series. Part 1 explained how to identify your specific needs and Part 2 offered an overview of the possible software or system choices. In Part 3 we’re suggesting the steps you can follow to choose the right solution.( read more ).

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Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

APRIL 8, 2011

Knight Foundation and Monitor Institute published a new report called “ Connected Citizens &# that looks at the impact of networks on communities, and asks, what do these emerging networks mean for community change? And, how can funders leverage them for good? The report analyzes many examples of networks and provides tools and tips for Network-Centric Grantmaking.

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NTEN

APRIL 7, 2011

[Editor's note: The following first appeared in the March 2011 issue of NTEN:Change. Read the complete issue of NTEN's new quarterly journal for nonprofit leaders by subscribing to the journal for fre e! ] By Farra Trompeter, Big Duck 1. Decide your goals for communicating in social media. Consider your personal goals and those for the organization you work for.

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Social Media Personal Professional Media 89

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

Care2

APRIL 6, 2011

While close to 70% of US college students say that they don’t consider themselves to be politically engaged or politically active, 1/3 say online tools such as Facebook, YouTube, blogs and Twitter have greater impact than face to face advocacy, according to recent studies by Knowledge Networks on behalf of Harvard University's Institute of Politics. 16% said it made less of an impact.

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Wild Apricot

APRIL 8, 2011

Here are some blog posts, articles and updates that Membership and Non-profit folks might find engaging and informative - including updates to Facebook's Questions and Google's plans for social search options.( read more ).

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News Google Profit Facebook 91

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

APRIL 4, 2011

Over the past 18 months, I’ve been participating in The Network of Networked Funders , a community of practice for grantmakers facilitated by the Monitor Institute. These grantmakers are supporting and working through networks to pool their learning and increase the impact of their respective grantmaking practices. In late 2011, Funder’s Guide to Networks will synthesize the knowledge and publish a print publication for the broader field of philanthropy.

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NTEN

APRIL 5, 2011

By Jocelyn Harmon, Director of Nonprofit Services, Care2 Unless you've been living under a barrel, you know the demographics of the U.S. are changing. Here are some key highlights from The Changing Demographics of America by Smithsonian. I encourage you to read the entire article. The United States of 2050 will look different from that of today: whites will no longer be in the majority.

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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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