My friends at Idealware have created a new fund to support their research. Many of Idealware’s reports have been funded by foundations and some have had corporate sponsorship. As you probably know, neither foundation nor corporate support is a reliable funding source these days. In addition, since Idealware must maintain its independence in order to produce their high-quality, unbiased reports and product comparisons, some potential funding sources are simply off limits.
Their goal is to raise $15,000. The fund will allow Idealware “to build on (their) base of more than four years and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of software research to provide the new resources that nonprofits need most, like information about social media tools, mobile text messaging, constituent databases, and more.” If you want to support them as well, you can do so on the Research Fund’s fundraising page.
(Full disclosure: I have contributed to some of Idealware’s reports, and they have even paid me for advice.)