onLine examines all things related to philanthropy and "being online": online marketing, online fundraising, Web 2.0 technologies, new tools, new issues, and new strategies to help nonprofits find their audience, philanthropists find their causes, and technologists and marketers understand the Web.
They ask you to complete this sentence... "Change begins with me. I commit to..." A winner will be chosen at random to go to the 2009 Presidential Inauguration and the Hawaii Inaugural Ball.
As someone who works to gain supporters for your cause, take this opportunity to make a promise to yourself, to those your organization serves, and yes, even to your boss: "In 2009, I commit to finding creative new ways to inspire our supporters, achieve our mission, and change our world."
First creative way to do it? Tell your constituents about this inauguration giveaway, and ask them to commit to making change by their support of your organization in 2009.
Oprah shares her favorite things with her audience. While I'm nowhere near Oprah-status, I thought I'd take the opportunity to do the same. The best part about my favorite things is that they are all FREE and could help increase your productivity, enable you and your coworkers to work together more dynamically, or even reduce costs at your organization.
Basecamp (www.basecamphq.com) Basecamp is a full-fledged project management tool and one of the few on this list that comes in different price plans. The free version lets you have unlimited users posting notes about one project. If you need one place to discuss a project and track who's saying what, Basecamp is a great tool. The other plans starting at $24/month also include To Do lists, milestones, and file storage. A shoutout to Matt for bringing us Basecamp.
FreeConferenceCall.com Really, it is free. No commercials or advertisements. You sign up and receive a free conference call number that is yours to use whenever you want, no reservations or schedules. If you're looking for the downside, the only one is that the phone number provided is not an 800#. But really, with nationwide calling plans, this is almost no issue at all. After each call you receive a report of what numbers dialed in and for how long.
Compete.com So you know your web site gets 10,000 unique visitors each month. The bigger question is, how does that compare to your competitors. Compete.com will tell you. The free plan gives reports on URLs you request for Visitors, Engagement, and more.
Tinyurl.com There are times when you don't want to scare off a potential donor or constituent by posting a long and unmemorable web address. Tinyurl is a good choice if you're current CMS system doesn't offer something similar. Enter your long URL and Tinyurl gives you a much shorter version. You can customize it as well.
Firebug extension for Firefox (http://getfirebug.com) Firebug is an amazingly useful tool for diagnosing HTML and CSS coding on a web page. After downloading and installing the extension to Firefox, you can view and edit the HTML or CSS for the page. If you're not sure which CSS is pushing that column too far left or why the spacing is way off between your navigation and your content, you simply start Firebug and roll over elements on the page. It will display the related code. Overall, this has probably saved hours of production time over the last year.
Bubbl.us (www.bubbl.us) Use it for mind-mapping, org charts, or simply brainstorming. This handy website lets you create bubbles of your ideas. And the best part, you can allow others to also edit the same diagram. In less than 15 minutes I did an outline of online marketing concepts and then invited my coworkers to edit the outline. This is a great tool for outlining your organization's 2009 campaign plans, marketing plans, org structure, or any other concept that you need to quickly outline and review with others. You'll easily be able to export your diagram to a jpg or png file for use in other documents or insert the HTML into your page. You can see a list of my favorite things below.
Want to add your own favorite things to this bubbl.us list? Comment below with your email address and I'll invite you to be an editor of the file on bubbl.us.
Changing Our World is a proud sponsor of the Convio Summit 2008 at the Renaissance Austin Hotel on Nov 17-19. We will be sponsoring a client lounge session and have a booth at this year's Exhibit Hall. Come by our booth and drop off your business card to win one of two Changing Our World Flip Mino cameras and copies of CauseWired: Plugging In, Getting Involved, Changing the World, by Tom Watson. Ask us more about our services and we'll even give you some great ideas on how you can use this camera to post your new videos to your organization's website in five easy steps.
onLine will blog from the conference next week to sum up the day's keynote addresses and find out which sessions are making the most buzz at the Convio Summit. Stay in touch with our Twitter posts and Facebook updates, too. We look forward to meeting with you and seeing what your organization has in mind for the holidays and in 2009.
Microsoft has always participated in gifts-in-kind grants to pedal their software to organizations. This week, they announced the launch of NGO Connection, a resource for nonprofits and NGOs to apply for grants for software and hardware. The site also features information on training and certification and has a few examples of how organizations are using their products. Their "Forums" section is simply a link to boards and services on TechSoup, Devex, and TeleCentre. They have a pretty impressive list of technology partners and a good list of software and hardware products.
Why did Microsoft launch this now? Their press release says the website provides "a convenient and easy one-stop shop for technology resources, knowledge sharing, community building and real-life examples for nonprofit organizations." The resources for refurbished desktops, laptop, and servers can be immensely helpful to organizations. The software is good; you could theoretically build a site with their small business and event software. But, with Google's nonprofit resources generating a lot of buzz, it makes one wonder if this is just another Microsoft attack on Google on all fronts. There are a lot of free products already out there, such as OpenOffice, 30Boxes, and Blogger.
Still, if your organization can apply and get free software, it's always worth it. Getting your IT staff certified will help keep you running better and you can create a nice suite of tools. Microsoft is still the big game in town (as I write this post using IE... occupational hazard). Visit their website and see if their game works for your organization.
...neither can Google. Here is a recent Google search result for Google AdWords:
See, if Google can't even program their spiders during their downtime, then you know you should always have your homepage ready to at all times. The organic listing will always beat the AdWords listing, so keep your site fresh, use lots of keywords and copy (but not too much), and make sure your partner and outside links go to your homepage with the correct URL and keywords.
Need more SEO? Check out Grassroots.org's fantastic SEO guide for nonprofits. Keep these ideas in mind for next time Google--or any search engine--visits your website.
We here at onLine typically avoid discussing specific constituent relationship management (CRM) tools and services. To be transparent, Convio is a sponsor of onPhilanthropy and all our sites. However, the news of Blackbaud's acquisition of Kintera signals the end of the brief CRM era with all those competitors. When Convio and Get Active merged last year, we stayed mum on the topic. We also figured it was good for the industry, and this might be, too. But, we all used to love spouting off the list of CRM providers: Convio, Kintera, Get Active, eTapestry, CTSG, ...and so on.
Now, it comes down to the big two, a few other smaller CRMs who don't get the attention. Ahhh, change.
So, what does this mean for existing Kintera clients? Does this mean we'll all just talk about the big two? What does this mean for Raiser's Edge clients? Good questions--with no immediate answers. The first step for any Blackbaud or Kintera client is to contact your representative. Ask the tough questions and try to get answers. The next step is to talk to your organization's stakeholders and assuage any fears or gossip. Keep a healthy prospective and remember that no matter what name is on the tool or what tools you have, the whole point is what the tools and services provide for your bottom line.
Ultimately, this news reminds me that the talk over the last few weeks came true, at least within some circles. I should listen to people more often.
I really like the new wave of click-to-donate applications that raise money with advertising; very sharp. They won't help you make your top line or keep your bottom line, but in terms raising awareness with simple games and showing the need for an organization, they have a certain appeal.
Freerice is a vocabulary trivia game aimed at helping to buy rice for the U.N. World Food Programme. Each correct answer provides 20 grains of rice to the WFP. FreeFlour is similar game that helps Bread For The World Institute. Save the World with Music uses music trivia to water for PlayPumps International, a nonprofit that builds PlayPump water pumps in Africa. These games use advertising impressions to raise money to provide the rice ,flour, and water tools for these programs. The longer people play, the more ad impressions are given and the more money is raised.
These types of games are interesting because they don't necessarily equate the program with the content. They take very universal game ideas (vocabulary and music trivia) and using them to promote the organization. The game websites could do more to capture e-mails for the organizations or drive more traffic to the organization's websites. And, Freerice provides banners for more viral marketing options. But the spirit of doing good while playing is what really captures the user interest and once they recognize it is for a good cause, they could be lead to the organization website once they are done playing.
Can your organization use a game or application like this to raise money? Yes, a little bit. It won't be a windfall. But, it can be a great marketing tool/web feature to produce with a small cost to develop the game and site. You must find the resources to build and you will need to market this game to your audience. You should also ask your audience to help market the game as well, via e-mail, banners, and social networks. Trivia is just this start; you could start speaking to developers to start making you own game to benefit your organization.
If you've wanted to start your own click-to-donate program, consider a idea that's a little more game.
* Best Overheard Quote and Overall Sentiment: "Don't judge ROI by donor dollars, judge it by the results of the lives you change and how you make your donors feel about this change." Well put.
* Best Treats: Coffee and beignets from Cafe du Monde and Jelly Bellies from GoLightly. Both were addictive.
* Check out the blog posts on Technorati for more feedback from NTC 08.
* Finally, one of the best sessions came from See3's Mike Hoffman on video for nonprofits. A great session and I'm glad they posted it:
NTC 08 Day Two started off with a hilarious plenary speaker, New York Times Tech guru David Pogue. Pogue spoke about the three trends for the future: cell phone technologies, television and movies whenever you want them, and Web 2.0 user content. The most interesting example he gave was Google's Grand Central, a service where one phone number will ring or text any phone in your life, which means you are always accessible, whether you like it or not! Pogue ended his talk with a grand piano performance of his famous (at least for NYTimes site junkies like me) iPhone song (And yes, I held up my iPhone for the ballad). Here's the video of Pogue in action:
There were plenty of breakout sessions today ranging from communications, IT, fundraising, and community building. The morning sessions focused heavily on e-mail campaigns, mobile phone fundraising, analytics and social networking. The afternoon sessions continued the Web 2.0 discussions and discussions built on analyzing campaigns. The key question that seems to be on a lot of minds is understand the value of social networking. Does it work? Does it build awareness? Does it raise money? How do you measure the ROI of social networks? Should your organization be doing social networks? How will it affect your organization?
A lot of organizations were quick to share their stories and curious to hear feedback from what other have done. It's a bit unruly and uneven to navigate, but the social network gurus gave strong advice for sticking to your guns and pursuing new audiences with these tools, even though the ROI was difficult to measure. Of course, onLine always says go for it! If you can build an online with social networks, social bookmarks, or any micro-group, you should pursue it. You never know when a channel could open a very big door. It's all trial-and-error and even the best experts can't predict which organization will have a groundswell.
The evening wrap-up featured afternoon ice cream and a Network For Good-sponsored reception, followed by a night out on the town in New Orleans. I have a feeling I may be one of the few people at the morning sessions.
We here at onLine typically avoid discussing specific constituent relationship management (CRM) tools and services. To be transparent, Convio is a sponsor of onPhilanthropy and all our sites. However, the news of 
I really like the new wave of click-to-donate applications that raise money with advertising; very sharp. They won't help you make your top line or keep your bottom line, but in terms raising awareness with simple games and showing the need for an organization, they have a certain appeal. 
