RSS Feeds
Brandraising: Using Technology to Grow Nonprofit Peaches
Sarah Durham, Big Duck We're all nerds when it comes to new media. No matter how many studies tell us that that the gadgets we're hooked on aren't good for us, most of us technology nerds still can't get enough. In part, it's because the technology is now so fast, easy and cheap to use that simply investing our time to figure it out seems like a pleasure. After all, I was that kid who stayed up late playing video games. (Ah, Joust... how I miss thee.) Now I'm that grown up who stays up late building communities for my obscure personal interests on Ning, and aimlessly chatting with my ...
Connect with TechSoup at the National Sexual Assault Conference (NSAC)
This week TechSoup staff members and expert consultants are speaking at the National Sexual Assault Conference hosted by CALCASA (California Coalition Against Sexual Assault) National Sexual Assault Conference (NSAC) in Hollywood, CA. Susan Tenby and Megan Keane presented on a panel with Janet Fouts today on LISTENING online, engaging through finding, hearing and connecting with your greater audience.
Changes to the NTEN Connect Newsletter
Until this month, we've used our monthly e-newsletter, NTEN Connect, to debut new content, typically publishing the 5-7 articles we've solicited all at once. While that gives us a nice traffic spike, it's a lot to drop on y'all in one day.So, in the spirit of Holly's call for innovation, we're going to try something new. Each weekday, for the first couple of weeks of each month, we're going to post a guest article related to our monthly theme. This month, it's fundraising; next month, Tech Trends. At the end of the month, the articles you, the NTEN community, like the most -- as determined ...
Fundraising When Money Is Tight
Mal Warwick, Mal Warwick Associates Our economy is still in bad shape, and a growing number of economists is telling us that it may well get worse. So what can we fundraisers do to minimize the impact of this difficult period on our organizations, and at the same time maximize our income? I suggest a cautious and balanced nine-step approach: 1. Reassess the whole ball of wax: fundraising, marketing, communications Now’s the time to take advantage of the opportunity to put in place an intensive evaluation process that will allow your fundraising, marketing, and ...
Donald Trump Thinks You're Boring (and Other Lessons on Innovation)
Flickr photo: Gilberto ViciedoIn her book "Zilch", Nancy Lublin recounts the time she was seated next to "The Donald" at a play. They had a little chit chat, which included Mr. Trump asking her, "Oh. So you're in the not-for-profit sector. You don't find that boring?" I can now say from experience that Nancy Lublin is neither bored nor boring. (Seriously. When I met her, she was wearing a necklace made of plastic hula girls, and she WORKED it.) From what I know about you, you aren't either. As Nancy points out in the book, it's hard to be bored when ...
How To Buy Used and Refurbished IT Equipment
This is Part 2 in TechSoup GreenTech's series on buying green IT equipment. See Part 1 here. We've spoken a good deal on refurbished computers over the years at TechSoup. Here's my general take on the topic: Buying and using refurbished computers is incredibly green. This is mainly because more than 80 percent of the lifetime energy consumption of a new PC occurs before you buy it. It takes huge amounts of energy and materials to manufacture a PC. The longer these devices are in use, the better for the environment. For more on this, see TechSoup's Refurbished Computer Initiative and the ...
Things We Like (August 2010)
A monthly roundup of our favorite nonprofit tech resources. Read more posts on our blog. HBR's Dan Pallotta thinks it's unethical that your organization doesn't spend more time and money on fundraising. Them's fightin' words to a lot of commenters. We think it's unethical that this crazy yo-yo guy hasn't been worked into a fundraising campaign. He will seriously blow your mind. But we have to wonder what his parents think. Somebody find him a spokespinner job, quick! A friend posted that yo-yo link to Facebook. Adina Levin thinks Facebook's not the best place for community organizers -- but ...
How-to: Improve Your Site's Bounce Rate (Intro to Google Analytics Advanced Filtering)
If you're in charge of your organization's web analytics, you undoubtedly know about bounce rate -- the measure of visitors who enter your site, say "Enh" (or something ruder), and immediately leave, without viewing any more of your carefully crafted pages. Yeah, those people annoy me, too. But unless you're a consultant working with several nonprofit clients, you're probably working in a vacuum: you know your own site's bounce rate, but you don't know how good it is compared to other sites.I recently had the opportunity to see anayltics for more than a few other sites, including ...
Collecting Data in Low Resource Areas: How to Get Started
William (Bill) Lester, NPOKI It’s an old problem, made worse by the tantalizing potential that technology provides: how do you collect and aggregate quality data when you work in low resource areas? Imagine this scenario: You’re an NGO working in an African country to advocate for clean water. You accomplish this by educating the people of that country on all aspects of safe water, and you lead projects that help to improve the quality of the water supply. You are funded to do this by a US foundation. As proof of your success, you need to gather data from each and every encounter ...
"Google Was Our First Office": Managing a Worldwide Staff
Efrat Ben-Dor Erez, NPTech Israel Imagine a Jewish girl, selling Challah bread on a college campus in America to help support black Muslims in Darfur. This amazing project, initiated by Eli Winkelman, came to life with the help of PresenTense. PresenTense is an international nonprofit organization founded in 2006, which uses technology effectively to sustain its activities, functioning as a "start up incubator for social entrepreneurs". Their mission is to engage and inspire the most creative minds, investing their ideas and energy to revitalize the Jewish community and the ...
The Math Is Starting to Add Up: The Promise of Mobile
Matt Berg, Millenium Villages I’ve been working or interested in the space of ICT for Development (ICT4D) for about a decade now. During this time, I’ve seen a lot of exciting changes, but nothing has been exciting or frankly paradigm shifting as the wide spread growth of GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) networks and emergence of applications that leverage the now ubiquitous mobile phone to deliver services by leveraging their ability to deliver and collect data. Achieving limited scale, chasing sustainability Richard Heeks of the University of Manchester, and one of ...
"Press 2 for Chickens": Innovating African Radio Stations
Melissa Ulbricht, MobileActive.org Two years ago, Bev Clark, the co-founder of Kubatana.net, was awarded a large grant in the Knight News Challenge for Freedom Fone, an open-source software platform for distributing news and information through interactive voice response (IVR) technology. Freedom Fone leverages audio as a mobile function using IVR, a technology that allows a system to detect voice and keyboard input. IVR allows a user to call, enter or say specific numbers, and listen to or contribute audio content. (You’ve likely encountered it when you call a customer service ...
Creating Public Transparency: Bringing GuideStar to Israel
Debra Askanase, Community Organizer 2.0 In early August, NPTech launched Guidestar Israel. It took almost five years to make GuideStar Israel a reality, and it is an incredible resource for Israeli nonprofit organizations. The GuideStar project was established as an unique cooperative venture by the Ministry of Justice, JDC-Israel, and Yad Hanadiv with the objective of developing civil society in Israel. NPTech (established by JDC-Israel and Yad Hanadiv) is the operating organization behind GuideStar Israel. It provides services and activities designed to help social ...
What Does Your Organization Look Like from the Outside?
Rececca at Wild Apricot has a great post this week on what makes a good nonprofit website. She's assembled some tips from the MojaLink group on LinkedIn. Here are a few of my favorites: Defining the purpose of a nonprofit website is key. Is it to attract donations, or is it to provide information to the individuals and groups seeking your services? Who will use it, why do they use it, [and] what do you want them to do on it? How can design make this easy? Make key information easy to find. If website visitors want to get more detailed info, give them the opportunity, but don't make every ...
Free Webinar from GiftWorks September 9: The 14 Basic Principles of Fund Development
Join Simone P. Joyaux and GiftWorks on September 9 at 2 p.m. Eastern time for a free webinar on the 14 core principles of fund development. Simone (ACFRE, Joyaux Associates) is recognized internationally as one of the most thoughtful, inspirational, and provocative leaders in the philanthropic sector. She's an expert in fund development, strategic planning, and board development, working with all types and sizes of organizations. Simone teaches philanthropy at the university level, speaks at conferences worldwide, and her books and other writings receive rave reviews. She has over 35 ...
50% Discount for Innovative Giving Conference
The Innovative Giving Foundation is hosting the Innovative Giving Conference September 27-28 in Malibu, CA. The conference's theme is Mobile Giving Demystified, and the program looks very promising.
We've just gotten word from IGF that thanks to a donation from Mobilecause, anyone who hasn't registered yet can get 50% off the registration cost. Just use the promo code MC-IGF.
Symantec Backup Exec Story Contest: $30,000 Giveaway
If you're a current Symentec Backup Exec customer (whether via TechSoup's donation programs or elsewhere), tell Symantec how your datacenter has taken advantage of the benefits of the tool — helping your organization save time, money, and the environment, with a reduced environmental footprint through a reduction in tape and disk use. Here's your chance to get creative as your story could win your organization the opportunity to give back. Symantec will make a donation to a nonprofit organization of the winner's choice in the amount of $30,000 USD, and to the choice of the runner-up ...
Mapping with ESRI ArcGIS Software: Newest Version Now Available!
Maps are everywhere these days. You can check them out in your car's GPS system, online, and on your smartphone. They make it easier for us to get around, see things with a different perspective, and understand places we may have never visited. For organizations, using your data to create maps to show your users, supporters, and funders is an important way to visually demonstrate a problem you're working to solve or your impact on a community. Geographic information system (GIS) software takes mapping to a whole new level. With a variety donated GIS software and learning resources from ESRI, ...
Hey Women Who Tech! Get Your Tech On!
As you know, we're just about done collecting your great session ideas for the 11NTC right now (deadline: August 27). After that comes the hard part: figuring out what to put on the final agenda. It's a balancing act -- literally. We're always looking to balance sessions across tracks, open source v. proprietary, sessions for small orgs and sessions for large orgs. Oh, and women vs. men presenters.We don't always succeed at that. Since we're an organization that's also run by a woman, we're very glad to partner every year with with the Women Who Tech Telesummit. The Telesummit was formed ...
11NTC Session Proposals: We Don't Want to Rush You (But Hurry!)
Submit your session idea today!Okay, we hear you. 11NTC is almost a whole month earlier this year (March 17 - 19), which means it's wedged in the middle of SXSW Interactive and AFP -- but we swear we picked the date three years ago when we had no idea. We also understand that because of this, everything we ask from you, our fabulous community, has to happen a whole month earlier than normal too. (Trust us, we know: you should see how much maté Anna's drinking already...) This includes submitting your session proposals by this Friday, August 27th.We know August is generally a ...
