NetWits

APRIL 9, 2009

It's day two of the Target User Forum here in Boston. The morning starts off with the keynote session Josh Bernoff , co-author of Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies. Josh is one of the most sought after speakers on the topic of practical, data-based strategies for getting results from social networks. I had a chance to talk with Josh before his presentation. He took some questions that I thought readers of the blog would be interested in having answered.

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Boston Authoring Social Network Practice 22

NetWits

AUGUST 27, 2009

Our own Allison Van Diest had the opportunity to lead a session at the DMA Nonprofit Federation's 2009 New York Nonprofit Conference entitled "The Right Message: Making the Most of E-mail Marketing in a Down Economy" where she shared best practices for creating strong email positioning and message architecture

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New York email Campaign Mail 55

NetWits

OCTOBER 2, 2009

Friday, October 2, 2009, is LIVE STRONG Day. As part of the LIVESTRONG Action campaign the LIVE STRONG day is focused on unifying people from all around the world through local events and activities that celebrate cancer survivorship. It’s also designed to generate awareness and foster support so the world can be freed from cancer.

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Local Cancer Impact Celebrate 59

NetWits

DECEMBER 21, 2009

Staff have sent out the last 2009 direct mail and email campaign, you’ve made all the major gift asks you can, and you’re ready to go on holiday. * It’s that time of year! Your office is scrambling to end the year on a high note and receive as many end of the year donations as possible. Big sigh of relief right?

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Gift Mail Campaign Donation 48

NetWits

JULY 7, 2009

A post by Chris Brogan on “ Strategic Blogging and Some Tactics to Nail It ” for business got me thinking about how nonprofits could benefit from a full fledged blogging strategy. A well implemented blog with a solid strategy behind it can be an incredible tool to help you connect with supporters on the web. Let’s look at some goals, questions, strategy and tactics to get you started

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Goal Benefit Strategy Business 59

NetWits

JUNE 22, 2009

The United Methodist Church recently launched a site with social media at its heart! Their new site goes far beyond a Facebook page or Twitter account. What they’ve done is create a “social media mashup” – Google Friend Connect, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, iLike and more. Why’d they take this approach you ask

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Mashup YouTube Facebook Twitter 55

NetWits

MAY 7, 2009

We recently launched a new blog here at Blackbaud Internet Solutions. It’s been an exciting endeavor and given us a lot of insight into using social media for nonprofits and fundraising! Our main goal is to help you learn how to leverage our technology and the tools that make up social media. With that in mind I’d like to share 4 Keys to Building a Successful Web Site based on similar tactics we’ve deployed on this blog

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Blackbaud Social Media Site Mind 55

NetWits

APRIL 28, 2009

If you're a frequent facebook user like myself, you are all to familiar with the event stream on your homepage when you log in. This is the page that informs you about all the activities taking place within your circle of friends in one convenient location - very cool, right?

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API Stream Facebook Mobile 55

NetWits

SEPTEMBER 16, 2009

Do you know who Seth Godin is? If not, make sure to check out his blog and what Wikipedia has to say about him. You might be thinking to your self, “Why is Frank asking me this?” The reason is simple really; I want to call your attention to a conversation going on in the online world based on a post by Godin ( The problem with non ). Godin says that nonprofits are resistant to change and slow to adopt social media as well as the free online tools available to them.

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Wikipedia Adopt Attention Philanthropy 48

NetWits

JULY 8, 2009

Over the last couple of weeks I have learned a tremendous amount about payment processing. It is an intriguing field since it is utilized by everyone that holds a credit card and every organization that processes credit cards, yet very few people fundamentally understand how transactions get authorized, processed and settled

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Process Raise Authoring Learning 48

NetWits

JULY 1, 2009

I tend to hear this question a lot these days - nonprofits are looking for ways to effectively utilize Facebook (If this sounds familiar, be sure to check out Raheel Gauba’s piece on getting started with Facebook ). And why not? Both the number of users and the time those users are spending on Facebook continue to increase at an incredible pace

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Sound Facebook Effective Question 48

NetWits

AUGUST 10, 2009

Nonprofits have a unique advantage in a bad economy: People VOLUNTEER their time to help these organizations further their cause. No other area of business has that unique strength, and that is the focal point of creative fundraising. There is another old adage that we might want to consider: “Time is Money” – so do Volunteers = Donations? If we throw-back to our Physics class, make some substitutions, and show our work, we might come up with something like this

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Challenge Classes Donation Volunteer 44

Frogloop

DECEMBER 20, 2009

In 2009 their campaigns made me laugh or helped me channel my frustration over injustices into action. Here’s my list of the best websites and online campaigns from 2009. In 2009, Charity:Water raised over $650K via social media, said Scott Harrison back in late September.

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Charity California Proposal Raise 4

Amy Sample Ward

OCTOBER 27, 2009

This month’s Net2 Think Tank question asks, “How do you stay up-to-date online?&# There are so many blogs, news sources, and conversations happening at the same time, every day, and the chances that you’ll be able to find them all without trying is pretty unlikely.

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Netsquared Feeds Create Search 39

NTEN

MARCH 4, 2009

I spoke with her about her session at the 2009 NTC , " Comparing Open Source CMSs: Joomla, Drupal, and Plone ", and why CMS seems to be the area where open source has really taken off in the sector: . If there's one thing I've learned in my 6+ years at NTEN, it's that people love to hate their web sites. Perhaps that's why there are so many choices when it comes to CMS (oodles of which are rated in our CMS satisfaction survey ).

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San Francisco NTEN Drupal Nptech 12

NTEN

FEBRUARY 20, 2009

We're even luckier that she's teaming up with Bev Magda, CIO of the Humane Society of the United States for a session at the 2009 NTC , " Technology Ch-Ch-Ch-Change: Managing Technological Change in Your Organization" . Dahna Goldstein Bev Magda I used to do technology consulting with nonprofits, and I found that the work was about 10% technology, 90% psychology. The best software in the world won't do an organization any good if they can't get their staff to use it.

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NTEN San Francisco Nptech United States 13

Connection Cafe

MAY 21, 2009

If you'd like to see more photos from this year's Convio Cares Week, please visit the Convio Cares 2009 photos on Flickr Every year Convio employees dedicate one day to going out into the community and volunteering our time during Convio Cares Week.

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Japan Volunteer Convio Austin 43

Connection Cafe

MAY 4, 2009

United Way and Hands On Central Texas Spring 2009 Day of Caring. Last Thursday night I attended the Lights. Camera. opening night pre-screening here in Austin and was blown away by the powerful videos shared by the four nonprofit organizations screening their video entries.

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Texas Austin Camera Cancer 43

Connection Cafe

SEPTEMBER 16, 2009

Author: Jordan Viator. Seth Godin wrote an interesting blog post yesterday entitled “ The problem with non ” that has definitely sparked a bit of conversation.

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Media Active Activities Activism 43

Nonprofit Tech for Good

OCTOBER 22, 2009

Six months ago I came pretty close to complete social media burnout. I was running over 20 social networking profiles, logging in seven days a week, and at minimum pulling 60-hour work weeks. My brain was completely fried and those around me were getting pretty fed up with the fact that I was never present, only connected… online, all the time. Even when I wasn’t at home at my desk, I was on my iPhone updating Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc.

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Profile Stats Management Social Media 29

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

JANUARY 23, 2009

Source: Dollar Bin, Flickr In February, I'll be co-teaching the " WeAreMedia Live " intensive two-day workshop in San Francisco from NTEN. The goal is to help participants create a social media strategy AND take a deep dive into the tactics and tools of social media.

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Map Create Organization Social Media 32

Connection Cafe

APRIL 27, 2009

The first full day of NTC 09 kicked off with a special dance (mad props to @ntenhross ), a great keynote and a session full of Google representatives spreading the (free!) tech love to the nptech community.

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Adwords Grant Map YouTube 43

Connection Cafe

NOVEMBER 18, 2009

Author: Lacey Kruger. Just coming out of the Homepage Design Slam session at the Summit, I wanted to provide a brief recap for those who couldn’t make it. Don Roach, our Art Director, and I led the session and got some great (and brave) volunteers to project their homepages and subject them to constructive critiques from their peers. Each volunteer got a party favor in the form of a large Post-It tablet sheet listing some quick fixes they can consider to optimize their homepages.

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Guidelines Flash Effective Design 33

Amy Sample Ward

JANUARY 7, 2009

Topic: This month, your Net2 Think Tank topic asks, “What do you think will be the big changes, new technologies, hot applications, or successful campaigns of 2009?” 2009 Web Predictions , by ReadWriteWeb. Top Internet Predictions for 2009 , by Social Computing Magazine.

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Netsquared Sample Application email 2

NTEN

APRIL 7, 2009

Jakob Nielson released a study last week suggesting that nonprofits are leaving half of their potential online donations on the table because of simple usability issues. You don't have to be a die-hard Nielson fan to know that usability -- the ease with which your stakeholders can find what they need -- is an issue for most nonprofits. . What to do about your site's usability (or lack thereof) is a tougher nut to crack. How do you know what's working and what's not?

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Site Issue Interaction Studies 9

NCE Social Media

NOVEMBER 24, 2009

Many Arc chapters have joined the socialmedia-sphere in 2009. Here is my top ten list of socialmedia things I am thankful for this year. All of the games on Facebook. Open APIs and deals between social media sites. News organizations that continue to use social media even though there isn’t revenue in it. People are still trying to figure out how to raise money through social media. Realtime search. Twitter lists. Building my agency’s brand through social media.

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Facebook API Chapter Social Media 2

Connection Cafe

JULY 13, 2009

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Participatory Slideshare Integration Law 33

Museum 2.0

MARCH 16, 2009

I’ve had it with museums’ obsession with open-ended self-expression. I know this sounds strange coming from someone writing an admittedly self-expressive blog post, but hear me out. When I talk about designing participatory experiences, I often show the above graphic from Forrester Research.

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Participatory Teen Movie Aggregator 24

Connection Cafe

MAY 21, 2009

Our art director, Don Roach and I recently authored an article on successful web site redesigns for our monthly "Connections" newsletter. I wanted to share my thoughts here too so I apologize if this is a repeat for some of you. Redesigning your web site can be a daunting task. But if you think it through and approach it methodically, you can make your site both beautiful and effective.

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Photography Structure Audience Design 33

Connection Cafe

JANUARY 16, 2009

I've been asked to lead a session at this year's NTC conference in San Francisco (April 26-28). I'm honored to contribute because the NTC ( NTEN's annual get together) is the conference to attend for anyone working in the technology field for nonprofits. Having attending 6 or 7 now it's definitely an event I look forward to and highly recommend. If your organization is pinching pennies these days but you'd like to go, check out the scholarship program to help send qualified 501c3 staff.

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San Francisco Offline Case Study Demonstration 33

Amy Sample Ward

AUGUST 18, 2009

I have a guest post up on John Haydon’s blog ! You can visit his blog to read the post and join the conversation there. The post is republished below.

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Evaluation Ratio Social Media Knowledge 21

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

AUGUST 30, 2009

I just got back from Foo Camp 2009, which was a blast as usual. I think this is my third or fourth Foo Camp, and the energy around public uses of technology was palpable.

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Afghanistan Michigan Mashup Amazon 2

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JUNE 21, 2009

Enjoyed my day in Berkeley yesterday at the Craigslist Foundation Bootcamp 2009. They had more than 1000 folks show up to talk about service, nonprofits and social action. I thought Arianna Huffington did a good job as the opening keynoter hitting on the service theme.

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Course Flickr Picture Roles 2

gokubi.com

SEPTEMBER 4, 2009

I’ve been writing Apex triggers for a while, and recently I ran across two ways to architect triggers that are different from how I used to do things. Both methods have one main benefit–they push all your logic to your classes, and allow the trigger to do just one job–invoke code on data change.

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Classes Method Doc Public 21

Amy Sample Ward

JANUARY 26, 2009

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?” Take a look at the posts below—many great conversation starters to get you thinking and buzzing about what 2009 will bring. Check out the predictions for 2009 from NetSquared community members: Channing’s predictions cover a wide range of areas from cell phones saving lives to our boards going online.

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Netsquared Collaboration Phone Mobile 2

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

AUGUST 20, 2009

Photo by Mansikka. What is a #HashTag? A hashtag is this symbol: #. It is also a Twitter term that describes a keyword, prefixed by that symbol, that helps people track conversations on Twitter.

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San Diego Aggregator Arts Participatory 19

NetWits

DECEMBER 31, 2009

The final hours of 2009 are ticking away. This year seemed to fly by faster than many others. Here's a quick look back

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Review 2

Steve Bridger

OCTOBER 13, 2009

This is a story of a blog. It’s a story I really ought to have shared long before now, and I am truly thankful to my good friend Ron Mader for (politely) badgering me to tell it.

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Mexico Hurricane Camera Reflection 18

Nonprofit Tech for Good

NOVEMBER 1, 2009

Twitter’s new Lists are a great way to organize your followers, and with a little intention and a dose of good will, Twitter Lists can also be used to promote your favorite nonprofits and the causes you care about. Here’s how: 1) Create a “Favorite Nonprofits&# List. Lists can say a lot about your character and what’s important to you.

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Conservancy Chapter Cancer Gift 18

Frogloop

MAY 4, 2009

April 28, 2009 | Maureen Backman Thanks Allyson, this is a great focused list. You can read the article here: [link] April 28, 2009 | Hatef Yamini Great list, thank you! April 28, 2009 | Joanna M. Brian at [link] April 29, 2009 | Brian P.

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Media ROI Benchmark Social Network 16