Amy Sample Ward
DECEMBER 16, 2008
I have a birthday coming up and over the weekend I received an email from Causes, the social change application in Facebook. Here’s what it said: Happy (Almost) Birthday! Thanks to Facebook, in two weeks all of your friends will see that it’s your birthday. Instead of just writing on your wall, or giving you something you don’t need, what if they had a chance to help a cause you believe in?
Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology
DECEMBER 7, 2008
Facebook Connect was announced a few days ago, and, of course, it’s the talk of the Web 2.0 world. Beth Kanter, as always, has a nice overview of what it is, and what it might mean. Google Friend Connect has been around for a few months, but they just opened it up to everyone last week. What do these two toolsets mean? Are they truly open, and based on open standards?
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Judi Sohn
DECEMBER 31, 2008
My 2009 resolution: get my blogging voice back. I haven’t really gone anywhere. My attention has been divided between Twitter, Facebook and now my latest addiction, Ravelry. As such, my blog has been neglected. I’ve “written&# hundreds of posts in my head…I just can’t seem to get them in to the editor with any regularity.
NetWits
DECEMBER 29, 2008
The key to being successful with Social Media & some tools to get you started Remember the saying “You have two (2) ears and one (1) mouth?" “Dumping” on people is not what you want to be known for in the world of Social Media (see definition on Wikipedia) or any other world for that matter. It doesn’t benefit you or the people you're dumping on.
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.
Beneblog: Technology Meets Society
DECEMBER 22, 2008
Just before the holidays, we had a great visit from Tracy R. Justesen, Assistant Secretary for Special Education and Rehabilitative Services. Tracy's brief at the U.S. Department of Education includes overseeing OSEP, the people who are funding our Bookshare for Education project to serve every student with a print disability in the United States. Tracy's visit really gave our team a chance to shine.
Robert Weiner
DECEMBER 17, 2008
Microsoft issued a critical patch for Internet Explorer today, described as protection against a “remote code execution&# vulnerability. If your computer is set up for automatic updates, you should get the patch, well, automatically. You should also be able to run Windows Update (under Tools in IE). Or you can get the patch from [link]. Microsoft usually issues security patches on the 2nd Tuesday of the month ( Patch Tuesday ), so this must be serious.
Nonprofit Technology brings together the best content for nonprofit technical enthusiasts from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology
DECEMBER 2, 2008
Home About Me Subscribe Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology Thoughtful and sometimes snarky perspectives on nonprofit technology How’s that donor database of yours? December 2, 2008 In general, although I am sometimes asked, I tend to avoid assisting clients with choosing a donor database package. Mostly because, although I actually know the field pretty well, it’s at the 10,000 foot level, rather than the 50 ft level that clients really need.
Judi Sohn
DECEMBER 31, 2008
Once again, I waited a while before leaping into the upgrade. This was the day for it. I upgraded C3’s site to WordPress 2.7 this morning. The C3 upgrade didn’t quite go as smoothly as hoped. Turns out that there was something in one of the files in our custom theme that the upgrade didn’t like. Erik and I eventually got the kinks out.
NetWits
DECEMBER 19, 2008
How Twitter can help nonprofits spread their message and inform their supporters. From what I’m finding there are a lot of nonprofits that know about Twitter , but have no idea what to do with it. Which means you might be missing what the tool can do for you! Twitter is an incredible tool that let’s you do two major things. To show you how it can be useful let’s look at a few real life examples.
Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media
DECEMBER 4, 2008
Photo by Andy Field I think Chris Brogan said that the secret to Twitter is listening (or search), not blasting your message out. I'm paraphrasing. The other day a commenter asked me if I could write something that offered some practical how to listening tips as well as applying it. Since I'm going to be teaching the Listening Module for the WeAreMedia workshop in February, I'm going to write up some step-by-steps on how to do this with different monitoring tools.
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.
Robert Weiner
DECEMBER 15, 2008
In his article in the Chronicle of Philanthropy titled “ Top 10 Threats to Computer Systems Include Professors and Students ,&# Jeffrey Young says. Today a growing number of network bad guys are professional criminals, and they’re looking to steal real money. They don’t just want to post an embarrassing note on your college’s home page.
Amy Sample Ward
DECEMBER 23, 2008
NTEN & TechSoup have teamed up to deliver a series of webinars on storytelling and social media - and I’m the presenter for the first one! First, what’s a web-inar? Wikipedia says: A webinar is a neologism to describe a specific type of web conference. It is typically one-way, [ 1 ] from the speaker to the audience with limited audience interaction, such as in a webcast.
Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology
DECEMBER 2, 2008
In general, although I am sometimes asked, I tend to avoid assisting clients with choosing a donor database package. Mostly because, although I actually know the field pretty well, it’s at the 10,000 foot level, rather than the 50 ft level that clients really need. And I know there are plenty of folks out there who know the field really well at 50 ft, and can step in with the best advice.
Judi Sohn
DECEMBER 10, 2008
I’m a knitting addict. When I’m knitting, it’s all I can do not to knit 25 hours a day. That’s why it took so long for me to write a blog post about my return to knitting (or about anything else, for that matter). If I have non-work time, I’d rather be knitting. Thing is, until this week, I hadn’t touched knitting needles since late 2001/early 2002.
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NetWits
DECEMBER 5, 2008
My first few weeks on Twitter Let's begin by saying everyone should at least give Twitter a shot - It can be a valuable tool in your social networking tool belt. Now on to my humble beginnings – When I first heard about Twitter I was quick to get an account at twitter.com. Once my account was set up I began ‘tweeting’ for the first time! The first few months were relatively uneventful and purposeless.
Wild Apricot
DECEMBER 21, 2008
Last year, social bookmarking site Reddit partnered up to raise over $3,000 for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF.org), a non-profit selected by the website’s users to benefit from the fund-raising drive. This year, they’re trying something different — raising volunteers instead of cash. It's partly an acknowledgement that many people have few funds to spare, and partly a nod to the wealth of high-tech talent found among Reddit users.
Robert Weiner
DECEMBER 15, 2008
Here are two new resources for surviving in tough times: The Chronicle of Philanthropy has compiled a collection of recent stories , discussions, and statistics about how charities deal with turbulent economic times. Topics include getting creative in tough times, the job market for fundraisers, and experimenting with new ways to ensure that donations flow over the holidays.
Amy Sample Ward
DECEMBER 13, 2008
Social Actions is a nonprofit initiative that helps you find and share opportunities to change the world. I have been working closely with the team for quite a while now because I think that versatile connections online are the only way for independent platforms to really be successful. Peter Deitz is the man behind Social Actions and here’s is how the $20.09 fundraising campaign started: For the last 2.5 years, I have been working extremely hard to build an organization from scratch that
Advertiser: Syncrony
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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology
DECEMBER 26, 2008
These span the range from tools I use every day or every week, to tools use more occasionally, but depend on. They also span the range of proprietary, SaaS, and Open Source. They are on this list because I think they are great, because they have undergone a lot of change or development this year, or because they are game-changing. Open Source Tools. 1.
Judi Sohn
DECEMBER 4, 2008
As the one who manages email communications for a nonprofit and someone who gets a lot of email across 4 accounts, I see both sides of the CANSPAM coin. Research in Motion , I’m calling you out for not playing fair. Back when I had a Blackberry, I was happy to get emails from them about new features, downloads, etc. Now I have an iPhone so I don’t want to get emails about Blackberries anymore.
Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media
DECEMBER 22, 2008
I've seen first hand how you can leverage your Twitter network to raise money for a good cause really fast. There are at least three micro fundraising campaigns that have launched in the last week. It's time update the history of fundraising on Twitter post I wrote that last month after the Tweetsgiving campaign raised $10,000 in 48 hours. Community learning also happens fast.
Wild Apricot
DECEMBER 1, 2008
Nonprofits looking to start using social media as a marketing tool with find a wealth of sound advice online, but putting the pieces together into a solid strategy? That's the real challenge. No one simple strategy will work for every nonprofit group. (In fact, trying to give step-by-step "one size fits all" directions for using social media is a lot like trying to teach a shy first-time party guest how to mingle with strangers.
Advertiser: DonorDock
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Robert Weiner
DECEMBER 12, 2008
Network for Good recently published The 2008 Online Fundraising Survival Guide: 12 Winning Strategies to Survive & Thrive in a Down Economy. This 45-page guide includes sections on avoiding “the four most common fundraising mistakes,&# answering the four questions required to get a donation ( Why Me? Why Now? What For? and Who Says? ), optimizing your web site and donation page, building your email list, and writing effective email appeals.
Amy Sample Ward
DECEMBER 12, 2008
It’s the time of year when people start placing their bets on where we’re going next. Developers, consultants, experts and users all like to weigh in with their predictions for 2009’s big developments, innovations and attempts for the coming year. Yesterday, at Make Your Mark’s Social Media Afternoon, I was asked what my predictions were.
Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology
DECEMBER 26, 2008
Here’s the top 10 list for 2008: 1) Remember when 1 MB was alot ? I wrote this post back in 2005, and it is the most popular in 2008! It’s actually because someone included it in a Wikipedia Article (no, it wasn’t me.). 2) Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants on July 27th. Don’t know why this rose to the top, but the carnivals are fun to do. 3) No More Custom CMS.
Forum One
DECEMBER 16, 2008
The incoming Obama administration is pledging to use some innovative internet strategies to expand citizen access to government information and processes. (This gets us at Forum One pretty jazzed - we've been evangelizing a long while about using online services to expand public access to information, enable new forms of collaboration, and build online communities.).
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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.
Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media
DECEMBER 16, 2008
How To Think Like A Nonprofit Social Media Genius View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: nonprofit socialmedia ). Here are my slides from the Convio " Social Media for Social Good " for tomorrow. I will be co-presenting with Emily Riley , a senior analyst from Jupiter Research. The webinar is sold out, but the folks at Convio are making the recording available if you sign up.
Wild Apricot
DECEMBER 31, 2008
Top 10 Blog Post lists are popping up all over the Internet as another year comes to an end, as nonprofits, individuals, and businesses take stock of where they’ve been and plan their communications strategy for the coming year. But how do you know which of your blog posts for the past year are your “top” content? It's more than a simple matter of counting up the page views.
Robert Weiner
DECEMBER 10, 2008
Not quite as clever as “ commit suicide on xanax ,&# but this spam comment caught my eye. This one has been posted 3,600 times. Is this the product of a random word generator or does someone actually write this stuff? Tags: Spam.
Have Fun - Do Good
DECEMBER 5, 2008
When you're on your death bed looking back on your life, what will you remember most, the stuff you received as gifts, or the time you spent with the people you care about? On Wednesday I posted 10 Lists of Holiday Gifts That Give Back. Although many of the ideas on the lists help people in need, or have a light impact on the planet, most of the ideas are objects to purchase.
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