Nonprofit Technology Items of 2006

Blog Entries/Articles

• 10 Ways Nonprofits Can Use Blogs - If you are a nonprofit looking for ways to improve your blog or would like to start a blog, this list with examples of nonprofit blogs is one resource you should read. After I read this, I started looking at nonprofit blogs in a different way.
• Social Networking for Nonprofits - This entry I wrote brought up some discussion on NetSquared. It has information on how nonprofits can use groups, profiles, and blogs on MySpace. It also has links to nonprofits on MySpace.
• Thirteen Tips for Effective Tagging - This is a great resource about tagging and how to tag in del.icio.us.
• Ten Ways to Use Web 2.0 to Change the World -This list has information about blogging, Technorati, RSS, and tagging. This is very helpful for those new to using web 2.0 technologies.
• How to Pinpoint the Right Social Networking Tools for Your Nonprofit, and Get the Support and Budget to Put Them to Work - This post is from Getting Attention and was part of the Nonprofit Consultant Blog Carnival. It is a great resource because the bloggers listed each had something different to say about social networking for nonprofits.

Websites/Online Communities

• Affinity Groups at N-TEN - This new online community launched in May is a great place for people involved in nonprofit technology to connect with each other. As of now, there are over 1,000 members and 78 affinity groups you can join.
• TechSoup's Office on Second Life - TechSoup has a virtual office on SecondLife. They hold meetings there and have an e-mail list discussing nonprofits in SecondLife. This is something that began this year.
• NP Tagvocates - This is an affinity group on N-TEN that was formed after the NetSquared Conference. I think is a great resource because we are spreading the use of tags across the nonprofit sector.
• Tech Glossary Wiki - TechSoup created this wiki and it became public during their online event on wikis in November. It is a glossary of technology terms as it relates to nonprofits. I think this is one of the best items because anyone can sign up to be a part of this collaborative project and add and edit terms and definitions. This also seems to be one of the first technology glossaries for the nonprofit sector.

Images

• Logo Collage - I created this collage for the science fair at NTC last year, even though I did not attend. I had so much fun making this in PhotoShop and I was really impressed with how it turned out.
• A Snapshot from the TechSoup Office on Second Life - A picture of some of us in SL wearing our TechSoup shirts.

Miscellaneous

• NetSquared Conference - I think this was one of the best items of this year. I know I gained lots of new knowledge by participating remotely. This conference led to new things in the nonprofit technology world.
• Idealware: Getting Started with Blogging Software - Are you new to blogging and interested in learning about different blogging tools? This report from Idealware has lots of information about blogging tools. The link above lets you download the report from Idealware. Techsoup also posted an article about the tools that were reviewed in the report at Seven Blogging Tools Reviewed.
• The Young and the Generous - A report by Network for Good - This is a very informative study by Network for Good about the growing trend of online charitable giving. Not only was this interesting to read, but lots of bloggers wrote about this study. The link above is to the website to download the report. If you are interested in reading a summary, check out my post here.
• Network for Good Charity Badges - These badges were just introduced in December. People can search for charities on Network for Good to support and raise money for them by placing the badge on their website or blog. This is a great new way for nonprofits to recieve donations.

nptech 
yearend

Healthcare Blogosphere Survey

In July 2006, Envision Solutions and The Medical Blog Network launched the first global survey of healthcare bloggers. They launched the survey because the healthcare blogosphere is rapidly growing in size and importance.

The results of the survey are now available and you can view the full report at http://www.envisionsolutionsnow.com/survey.html .

Here are the findings of the survey that I thought were interesting:

• 3.3% of the respondents classified their blog as an advocacy org/nonprofit
• When asked about the most important reason they started blogging, 19.2% of the respondents stated that they blog to educate others and 8.5% of the respondents blog to advocate for a cause
• When asked about the second most important reason they started blogging, 24.9% of the respondents (the majority of the respondents) said they blog to educate others and 11.9% blog to advocate for a cause
• 55.7% blog about health news, 60.9% blog about personal experiences, and 47.1% blog about disease information

Since not many of the bloggers that participated in this survey blog for a nonprofit, I started thinking about the blogs I have come across that are for health related organizations and the content health organizations could blog about.

What health organization blogs do you read? What do you think health related nonprofits should be blogging about?

Cheetah Conservation Fund Videos

While searching the Internet for videos for nonprofit organizations, I came across a great one for the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF).

This video is more of like a commerical advertising the organization and points you to their website for more information.

You can find this video on two websites. The first website is on their donation page on their website. I think this is a great idea to display a video on the donation page. The second website is on YouTube. Their video is titled Help Us Save The Wild Cheetah. People who come across this video on YouTube will learn what CFF is and can go to their website to find out more information.

It is also important to note that the organization has their own username at YouTube. As of now they have four videos on their page. They have another commerical like video advertising the Run for the Cheetah event.

The founder of CFF and a cheetah made a presentation at an elementary school in Washington. The video of this presentation is found at Cheetah Tales: Ben Rush Meets Jalani.

Social Bookmarking for Nonprofits

I spend a lot of time researching how different places use social bookmarking and tags. One example I have found is Adobe, which I think is a great example of a company/organization using social bookmarking and tags. Their account is at http://del.icio.us/adobe and they also created a tutorial on what you can do with their resources on del.icio.us.

I started thinking, how could nonprofits use social bookmarking? What information could they share?

Here is what I came up with:

• News
• Press Releases
• Donors / Donations
• Fundraising
• Volunteering
• Sponsors
• Research
• Resources (related to the mission of their organization)
• Campaigns

What other information could nonprofits share?

Social Networking for Nonprofits Article on Nonprofit Times

I just came across an article posted on Nonprofit Times titled Social Networking. It brings up some interesting points about nonprofits and social networking sites.

Here is an excerpt from the article:

"Check out the American Cancer Society (ACS) on the Web portal YouTube.com and you'd think the nonprofit is active in showing videos. If you search for the organization on YouTube, you'll see the cartoon The Flintstones appearing to change directions after smoking. You'll also see that $100,000 was raised during one event at Michigan State University. News regarding colorectal cancer is in one video, and the Relay for Life details are shown in another video.

But Marty Coelho, national managing director for marketing and communication at ACS, isn't using YouTube for Relay for Life. Volunteers took to the net and uploaded more than 120 videos.

Volunteers and donors are flocking to MySpace for personal pages, Flickr.com for photo sharing, and YouTube.com for viewing and uploading videos and social networking in general."

Using Social Media for National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week

This week is National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week. Many communities are holding events for the week. How can they use the social web to share what they accomplished this week?

Here are some ideas of sample events and different ways you can use the social web:

• Volunteering at Food Banks/Shelters - Take photos of food bank/shelter and volunteers and post it on Flickr. Take a video of volunteers helping out and/or of the food bank/shelter. Post a blog entry about the event.
• Hunger Awareness Programs- Create an informational video and post it on YouTube. Post a blog entry (or entries) about the informational content presented at the program. Record the presentation as a podcast and/or video.
• Hearing Homeless People Speak- Post a blog entry about the experience of this homeless person. Record the presentation as a podcast and/or video. Take photos of the program and post it on Flickr.
• Food Drives/Other Drives- Take photos of items collected and post them on Flickr. Post a blog entry about the drive.

How Nonprofits Can Use Facebook

The Facebook is a social networking website made up of many different networks. These networks include high schools, colleges, workplaces, and regions.

The Facebook has the potential to be successful in the nonprofit sector and I have already found lots of nonprofit related content on there.

Why the Facebook can work in the nonprofit sector:

Colleges have student organizations who are involved in volunteering and fundraising. There are also student groups of a nonprofit organization. Both college and regional networks hold events such as Relay for Life or Race for the Cure.

They create groups for their organization or event. The groups allow them to announce meetings, have discussions with other members to plan events, and post pictures. Each group is listed in a group category. Nonprofit related categories include Service Groups, Advocacy Organizations, Community Organizations, Non-Profit Organizations, Philanthropic Organizations, and Volunteer Organizations.

In addition to groups, members can post details of events where people can RSVP for an event. Each event must indicate an event type such as causes which you can select fundraiser, protest, or rally.

One feature that makes Facebook unique is being able to select who has access to groups or event listings. It can be open to people in your network (school, region, or workplace) or global (open to everyone). You might be interested in only having it open to your network if it is an event/group that only users in your network would be interested in. For example, you might have a group or event posted for a local Relay For Life event or Race for the Cure. You would only want people locally to see this information. However, you might decide to make it global where all members of the facebook can see how you are marketing your event/organization. The best way for organizations to use the facebook is to make sure their events and groups are global.

Most of the groups and events on the Facebook are created by supporters of an organization or cause.

How do members learn about groups and events?

Members can learn about groups and events by searching Facebook and joining the group or event lists. They can also be invited to a group or event list.

Another way members can learn about these are through their friends. Depending on the user settings, users can see what groups their friends have joined and what events they plan to attend by reading their mini-feed.

Examples of Nonprofit Related Content on the Facebook

• 860, 170 members are part of the Join to support Breast Cancer Awareness Month group in the global network
• The World Education and Development Fund, an organization who transforms lives by supporting high-quality education for impoverished communities in Latin America, held an event at Babson College. This organization also has a group on the Facebook.
• November 4th was International Day of Action on Climate Change and a Walk Against Warming was held in Australia. This was posted as an event on the Facebook in the global network. The page for the event has the logo of the walk posted as the event picture.
• There is a campus group for UNICEF at Indiana University. They started a group on the Facebook to announce news and meetings.
• A global group was created for Action In Africa, an organization at a high school in Palo Alto, CA.
• A global group was created for Advocates for Grassroots Development in Uganda (AGRADU), a UNC student initiative aiming to support indigenous grassroots efforts at community building and economic development in Uganda.
• The president and founder of Books All Around, a national literacy initiative, created a global group for the organization.
• Idealist.org created a global group called "I am an Idealist".
• About 1, 750 members joined the global group for The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN).
• There are lots of groups and events listed for Campus/Regional Relay for Life and Race for the Cure events.

Tagging to Help Teachers

Last week I participated in the Wiki Session of the K12 Online Conference. In this session, participants were asked to sign up for a subject and then given a topic to work on in teams. My topic was Tagging To Help Teachers.

I was excited to have this topic for two reasons:

1. I have already started researching how tagging is used in education. In April 2005, I wrote a blog entry titled Tagging with del.icio.us for Educators. This was a very basic introduction to del.icio.us and how educators can use it. Now tagging seems to be used more in education and written about on different websites.
2. I am also interested in the use of tagging in the nonprofit sector. In May 2006, there was a presentation at NetSquared on tagging. I participated in the tagging session in the remote conference and my notes are found here. After participating in this, I started compiling a list of websites that explained tagging. I also started researching information about tags being used in different industries. I think since tagging is very new, it is important to learn how it is used in different types of places.

Since I already had some knowledge about this topic, I contributed alot to the wiki, which ended up coming in 3rd place in the event.

I contributed content to the following sections:

• Benefits of Tagging for Educators
• How Can Teachers Use Tagging
• Benefits of Tagging Standards
• Proposal for Standards
• Websites Using Tags

I found a great article on eSchool News titled For some educators, tagging is 'it' . This helped me with content for the first two sections I worked on.

I added alot of content to the standards sections and came up with the idea for the proposal for standards. The basic idea was to include at least 3 tags in each resource.

The 3 tags are:

• Grade Level: Kindergarten, 1stGrade ......12thGrade
• Subject: Use a broad subject like Math or Science. High School teachers might want to be more specifc and add another tag for the subject like Algebra, Geometry, Biology, or Chemistry.
• Specific Tag: Add another tag that describes the resource in more detail. For example, you tag a site about adding fractions. You can use addition, fractions, or both.

An example of this tagging standard is :
11thGrade Math Algebra Addition Fractions

To find resources that are tagged with all 5 tags you would use
11thGrade+Math+Algebra+Addition+Fractions

For more information, you can check out the wiki.

Miriam Engelberg - IU Alum

I learned from N-TEN that Miriam Engelberg passed away. She was a nonprofit technologist, created cartoons, worked at CompassPoint, and wrote a blog about her battle with cancer. Since I did not know anything about her, I decided to search the Internet for information about her. I came across an article about her and learned that she graduated from Indiana University with a Bachelors degree. As an IU Alum, I wish I would have known about her sooner since she would have been a great person for me to communicate with in nonprofit technology.

A few months ago, I started exploring the use of emerging technologies in health through my involvement in NetSquared. I think Miriam's blog about her battle with cancer and the connection she made with others with cancer is a great example of this.

Here are two cancer related blogs that mention Miriam:

• It's all about me... (in the entry Things are definitely looking up )
• The Cancer Blog (in the entry Miriam Engelberg has lost her battle with breast cancer)

The Nature Conservancy Digital Photography Competition on Flickr

I just discovered The Nature Conservancy Group on Flickr.

They are having a digital photography contest on Flickr. They are looking for beautiful nature photography representing the diversity of life on Earth. Your own, original images of our lands, waters, plants, animals and people in nature are all eligible for the competition.

To enter the contest on Flickr, you need to join the group and then upload your photo(s) and send each image to The Nature Conservancy group. Tag each image for entry into one of the two categories -- "BestNature-TNC06" for your photographs taken anywhere around the world where nature has inspired you, or "Preserve-TNC06" for photos taken on a Conservancy nature preserve.

You need to upload your picture to the group by 11:59 pm Pacific Standard Time on Sunday, December 31, 2006. You must be a resident of the United States and 18 or over in order to participate in this contest.

The full rules can be found here and additional information can be found on their photo competition page.

Web 2.0 Thinking Game for Nonprofit Technology

I was browsing bookmarks on del.icio.us and found an interesting link to a blog article called Web 2.0 Thinking Game. This article compares web 1.0 and web 2.0 with examples.

I thought it would be neat to compare web 1.0 and web 2.0 in nonprofit technology.

Here is what I have come up with:

Web 1.0: Nonprofits post links to articles and press releases on their website
Web 2.0: Nonprofits post links to articles and press releases in an RSS feed on their website

Web 1.0: People send e-mails back and forth updating documents
Web 2.0: People use a wiki to update documents

Web 1.0: Nonprofits post images to their website
Web 2.0: Nonprofits post images to Flickr and use tags


What are some other ways to compare Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 in nonprofit technology?

First Book and Cause Based Marketing

I had the opportunity to meet with some of the staff at First Book when I was in DC in August.

First Book's mission is "to give children from low-income families the opportunity to read and own their first new books". Their blog is a member of the Nonprofit Blog Exchange and it is a very interesting blog to read. What makes this blog interesting is the fact that different staff members write the blog entries.

While talking to the First Book staff, I learned that they do alot of cause-based marketing. Their corporate partners include Borders, Cheerios, and Disney.

National Breast Cancer Awareness Month

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. There are many cause marketing initiatives this month that are donating to the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

These initiatives include the following:


Yoplait is having its ninth year of the Save Lids to Save Lives program. From now until December 2006, you can mail the pink lids to Yoplait. They will donate 10 cents to the Susan G. Komen Foundation for each lid they receive. You can find out more at Yoplait's Committment to Breast Cancer.

Campbell's Soup replaced their red-and-white labels with pink-and-white labels on their condensed tomato and chicken-noodle soup. Campbell will donate 3.5 cents per pink can to the Susan G. Komen Foundation through Kroger.

To support the fight against breast cancer, Mattel has created a Pink Ribbon Barbie doll. The Susan G. Komen Foundation will receive at least $100,000 from Mattel. For more information check out New Barbie Doll Could Teach Children About Breast Cancer.


Here are links to blog entries and articles about other initiatives for Breast Cancer Awareness:

CultureJunkie: Breast Cancer Awareness

WorkForce Software Supports National Breast Cancer Awareness Month at National Conferences

Nonprofit Blogosphere Roundup #2

Here is a summary of what nonprofit bloggers have been writing since my last roundup:

Social Networking

Are you looking for ideas on how to improve your organization's profile on MySpace? Mara of Democracy in Action wrote an article about MySpace Best Practices for Nonprofits.

Interested in learning how nonprofits, advocacy groups, or politicians can use websites like MySpace or YouTube? Bonnie of Development Seed brings up some good points about this topic in her article titled Should MySpace be your space?.

Credit Unions are also using MySpace. There is a great discussion about this topic at MySpace for Credit Unions.

Website Accessibility/Web Design

Some of my readers might remember an entry I wrote in February titled Target being sued over inaccessible website. This is in the news again and nonprofit bloggers are writing about accessible websites. These entries include Is Your Web Site Accessible? and Website Accessibility.

Is your website effective? Betsy of Betsy's Blog writes about this topic in her entry titled A Note About Effective Websites.

Are you interested in learning more about RSS or creating your own RSS feed? There is a great article about this topic on Blue Sky Collaborative's Fundraising Blog titled RSS is an opportunity for nonprofits. It has a brief introduction on what RSS is, information on how RSS is a powerful tool for nonprofits, and a step by step guide on how to create your own RSS feed.

Other Topics

Are you visiting another country or city and interested in learning about the nonprofits in that area? Marc of the npMarketing Blog was planning a trip to Ireland and wrote an entry titled NPO Marketing in Ireland about organizations in the area.

Also on the npMarketing Blog you will find an entry about some topics he learned about at the Games for Health Conference he recently attended. Marc hopes to bring The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society into the gaming scene.

Are you interested in a fundraising project that involves art? The blogger of the fundit is interested in this and wrote an entry about the project that The Urban Forest Project is doing in New York.

SOS Community Services , an organization that serves homeless families and children in MI, posted a blog entry titled Helping Homeless Families Over the Holidays about ways for groups and individuals to get involved in helping the organization during the holidays.

Jeff of the Donor Power Blog wrote an entry titled Three ways to make email work for nonprofits . He points his readers to E-Mail Energizes Nonprofit Efforts, an article in DM News about ways e-mail can help nonprofit marketing and fundraising and has examples of what nonprofits have done with e-mail.

Through the ASPCA Blog, I learned that ASPCA has a website for education, by reading the entry titled Educators and Parents: Teach Kids About Emergency Preparedness. ASPCA Education has resources for educators and parents about learning to care for animals in homes and communities. This blog entry points us to their resource about pets and emergencies.

Web 2.0 in Education

Using Web 2.0 technologies in an educational setting is a topic I am very interested in. While researching this topic, I discovered two education blogs.

The first blog I discovered is called Education as a Conversation. This blog contains lots of information about web 2.0. One of my favorite entries in this blog is titled Social Software and student collaboration: blog, wikis, and del.icio.us groups . This entry describes how a class divided in groups can work together in their group using these tools. Another interesting post on this blog is about social bookmarking and tags.

The second blog I discovered is called Word of Mouth Blog. I came to this blog by learning about The 19 Best Elearning Blogs post. While browsing the blog, I read the newest post on the blog titled Elearning 2.0 is About People.

Nonprofit Blogosphere Roundup #1

Here is a summary of what nonprofit bloggers have been writing about in the past few weeks.

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) had a Cat Photo Contest. In their blog, they posted pictures of the 2006 Cat Photo Contest Winners. The ASPCA blog just started using tags in their blog.

Celeste at Studio 501C wrote about a guide for nonprofit publications. This guide is called PR 2.0 Essentials and "it would be helpful to nontechies in nonprofits who want to learn how to interact with external audiences through social bookmarking, RSS, blogs, podcasts, and more."

The Artful Manager wrote an entry about planning presentations with links to resources on this topic.

There was a recently a Blogathon where bloggers raise money for charities. One of the charities that bloggers raised money for was First Book, a member of the Nonprofit Blog Exchange. They wrote about the results of the Blogathon in their blog. Nine bloggers blogged for First Book and they raised more than $2250 for the organization, which will buy over 900 new books for children in need.

The Wellspring, a blog about youth affairs opportunities in Australia & the United Nations (UN), wrote a series of entries about developing your own website - Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

Care2's blog, frogloop, has an entry titled The Value of Planning which is about a recent article on GetActive about e-mail communications .

Network for Good has a new study titled "Impulse on the Internet: How Crisis Compels Donors to Give Online." Beth of Beth's Blog wrote a blog entry about this study at her entry titled Network for Good Study of Disaster Giving.

While on the topic of disasters, Where Most Needed has an entry about a recent report about the Indian Ocean Tsumami. This entry can be found at Tsunami Report Calls for Accreditation of Charities.

Are you interested in making your website more donor friendly? Jeff of the Donor Power Blog wrote an entry on this topic titled Nonprofit Diseases: Web Blockage.

Resources from July

I am still catching up on my reading from July. Here are a few resources I would like to share with my readers.

• Using the internet to raise serious money for your nonprofit organization is a book about using tools like websites, blogs, podcasts, and other technologies to fundraise
• Your Attention Please is an article from BusinessWeek about companies/nonprofits using new technologies
• Web 2.0 - it means more than blogging
• Ten Ways to Use Web 2.0 to Change the World
• Pew Internet Bloggers Report

Tips for letting your visitors know about your updated website

Have you recently updated your website? How can your visitors know that you have updated the site?

There are two things you can do-

1. Add a page for what's new and link that page to your index page.
2. Have a section on your index page listing and linking the content of the website that is new.

What other ways can you think of?

More stories needed

As I have been looking over the notes from the netsquared conference, I started thinking about what came out of the conference.

In my opinion, I think the main point is that nonprofits need more examples and stories from nonprofits using new technologies. Having the case studies up is one way to share what other nonprofits have done. Instead of only posting information about how many nonprofits are using these tools and what tools are used, we need to mention the results. Has this new technology helped the organization? How did it help with social change?

While I am all for these new technologies, I feel this needs to be done before moving forward.

Notes from the Remote Tagging Session at Netsquared

Beth started off with the question "What do you think we need to be doing to get more npos tagging?".

Responses to this question were:

• More npos just need to know what tagging is - then how to do it and how they'll benefit from it
• Raise awareness of tagging because a lot of NPOs don't know about it, and many of those who do don't see why it's useful
• Use examples of what others have done and how it's helped them

Points, Questions, and Ideas brought up:

• tags and "diluted" content
• resources like NetSquared's Net2Learn are cool
• seeing tag streams from a set group of people vs. seeing tags streams from everyone
• discovery apsect of seeing what others are finding and tagging
• what do you find to be the top benefits to npos using tagging? what are the top "selling points" if you had to make a pitch?
• It is an easier pitch to the techies
• how to take the nptech example/model and leverage that to more broadly to nonprofits
• the nptech tag is useful to see what's interesting others in my field.
• develop other tag communities
• structure vs. unstructure tagging
• "janitor role" to clarify families of tags
• giving the user a "flag" for content you think is mis-tagged when pulling in a stream
• we still need some how tos for some of the tools
• need tips for developing and using tags within a community
• nonprofit tags for different nonprofit verticals, start by collecting tags people are using
• del.icio.us for dummies
• collect case studies of how tagging has been used - especially if it's been directly tied into nonprofit program
• we need to get more people to add their stories in net2
• we need people to write about case studies on their blogs and/or websites
  
  

After this session, the Tagvocate group on N-TEN Groups was formed.

Has tagging for disaster relief created social change?

Today I remembered about tagging and blogging with Hurricane Katrina. How did everyone know to tag their items in August/September with HurricaneKatrina or Katrina? Did any of these things create social change? Did tagging help disaster relief? I think this is worth exploring.


Tags: net2

Netsquared Remote Conference

I had a blast at the Netsquared remote conference. Even though I was unable to attend the face to face conference, the remote part was a thrill for me.

I attended the following remote sessions:

• Health Care and Web 2.0 Technologies
• Partnering with researchers in industry and academia
• Blogher
• Tagging in the Nonprofit World
• Tech Tools in Medicine
• Superpatron: viewing libraries from a patron's point of view

I also went to the hallway to chat real time with conference participants. I learned what was being said in the mashups, social networking, gender, and tagging sessions. It was so interesting. I felt like I was there even though I wasn't.

It was also neat to chat with Beth, Marnie, Ruby, Susan, Holly, and a few others.

I will be posting my notes and thoughts shortly from what I learned at these remote chats.

Tags: net2

Tagging to Organize Content

I have been thinking alot lately about how tagging and social bookmarking can be used in the nonprofit sector. The one thing that I thought of right away was using tags to organize content better. That means use tags that will help you find content better.

How can you use tags?

• Create a tag that will be used for news and press releases for your organization. Give the URL and/or RSS feed to people outside of your organization to keep up with the news.
• Create tags related to your mission to find links and photos easier
• Create tags for events
• Are you a large organization? Keep track of your members or chapter websites, blogs, other related items using a tag.
• Need to collaborate with other staff members for a project, research, or event? Create a tag for to help collaborate better.
• Do you work at a museum or are you creating a scrapbook? Be sure to tag photos to find these items easier.

These are just a few ways you can use tags. What other ways can you think of?

Tags : tagging, organize, contentmanagement

Social Networking for Nonprofits

Both MySpace and Friendster have the potential to be successful with nonprofits. In fact, I have already seen some nonprofits use these websites. MySpace is more popular and nonprofits have more of a presence there.

How can these sites work for nonprofits?

• Profiles - Create an account for your organization, issue related to your mission, or campaign. Members will be able to add you as a friend. Include information about your organization, issue, or campaign. Provide a link to your website address.


• Blogs - You can create a blog with your account. Even if you have another blog, you should still consider creating a blog to reach the younger audience. Include information related to news, how to get involved, and other related topics.


• Groups- Create a group for your organization, issue related to your mission, or campaign. Both sites have a Nonprofit category and have many groups already listed. A group will allow you to have discussions about various topics.

Examples from MySpace

Profiles/Blogs -

The Humane Society

Oceana

Oxfam America

Greenpeace

World Preserve

Worthy Causes Foundation

Help The Harp Seal

After creating your profile or group, be sure to add a link to it on your website and blog. The Worthy Causes Foundation Website is a good example of this.

These examples show that nonprofits can participate in social networking, even though it may be a younger audience. Anything related to the environment, health, and campaigns seem to attract this audience.

Should your organization use new technologies?

Organizations should look into using new technologies like blogs, rss feeds, tagging, and podcasts in their organization. All of these new tools have the potential to be useful in the nonprofit sector. However, it varies from organization to organization.

You should not use a new technology (or any technology) just to use it. You need to set goals. What do you want to accomplish by using this new technology? How will it help your organization?

Create a plan on implementing the technology.

For example, you want to start a blog for your organization. Who will be updating the blog? Who do you hope will be reading the blog? What content will you include? How often will you be posting new entries?

Evaulate the technology as time goes on. Is it successful? What works? What does not work? How can you make improvements?



More information about technology planning -

• What's involved in technology planning?
• Tips For Getting More Out of Your Technology
• Why a Technology Plan?
• So What's the Full Value of Technology?

Making Connections Online Through Blogs

I just read an interesting article titled Blogging Connections: Real Life Meetings.

The article brings up two main points-

1) Bloggers are considered experts in their fields and many bloggers speak at events.

2) Many bloggers meet each other in person at blogging related events. They also meet each other at events not related to blogging.

Bloggers have already established a relationship with other bloggers. But when bloggers meet face to face, they are able to expand their relationship. These connections would have never happened without the blogging experience.


What does this mean in the nonprofit sector?

I have already seen and heard about some of these things happening. As a blogger, who mainly writes about nonprofit technology, I have made connections with other nonprofit bloggers. If it was not for the blogs, I would have never made these connections. I know it will be easy to make a connection with these bloggers if we ever meet face to face.

Even though I have not been to a conference yet. I know bloggers are considered experts in nonprofit technology, especially nonprofit blogging. They do speak at events. I have read on nonprofit blogs that bloggers do meet each other at these events.

International Children's Digital Libary website

As some of you might know, I am an active member of Tapped In, an online community for educators. Tapped In holds many real-time chat sessions during the week. I decided I am going to start blogging sessions I attend.

I attended the session for web tools on Monday. We discussed the International Children's Digital Libary website. The International Children's Digital Libary is a digital library of children's books from all over the world. There are about 900 books in 35 different languages.

The discussion leader asked us to make note of the different ways you can search for a book.

You can search for books by......

• location/continent
• language
• title
• author
• subjects
• color of book cover
• age of reader
• length of book
• picture books or chapter books
• make believe or true books
  

and there even more ways to search for books on the site

I was not sure why anyone would want to search for a book by the color of the cover. I asked the discussion leader this question. I was told kids remember books by color. I realized after that how this is helpful. I thought about how kids could read a book on the internet in this digital library. For example, they could read a book about a dolphin with a blue cover. They really liked the book and wanted to buy it. How can they find the book? They might not remember the title or author, but they could remember the book had a blue cover.

Kids can write reviews about books. It is very interesting to read these reviews. I really enjoyed reading the profiles of the reviewers because you can find out more information about them. Most of them completed the sentence for "If I could change my school library media center I would....".

Why do nonprofits not blog?

There was a comment in an interview on Netsquared that nonprofits that do not blog are not serious about finding new ways to engage people.

I have been thinking alot about this comment and the more I think about, the more I get upset.

Why?

I am trying to find a web position at a nonprofit. I have learned from an e-mail list that I am on that alot of nonprofits do not have time to do everything they would like to do with technology.

I know this is true for small nonprofits. One person has so many responsibilities that they can not take on more tasks. Maybe they would like to have a blog, but where are they going to find the time to create one and keep it updated?

I am not sure if the same thing applies to larger nonprofits. But if it does not, the only thing I can think of is that they do not know how a blog can help their organization. I hope through Netsquared these nonprofits will be able to learn how blogging and other new technologies can help them.

Questions from NTC Blogging Panel

I was reading the questions from the NTC Blogging Panel. They came up with some great questions.

Listed below are the questions I would like to explore more. I will write about them either on here, on the Nonprofit Blog Exchange, or on Netsquared.

1. It is important to know who your audience is, understand that it may change as you go along, who you attract. So how do we do this?
2. What is your goal? To educate, build community, fundraise. Focus on one to start with.
3. What is the true cost involved in blogging? What's the management time, how many hours, time is already short, now you want me to blog?
4. What's the impact of blogging in a distributed organization with a lot of chapters, where they might write things which do not reflect central policy, and may reflect poorly. What do you do?
5. What resources are there for blogging (see the right side of this blog!)?
6. When thinking about how to generate content for blogs, there's often a lot of internal communication about current news that can be used externally - strategic. Target where communication is happening to generate content without doing new work
7. How do you rally citizen blog armies or communities of bloggers around a cause?
8. How do you get other influential bloggers to link to your org/cause's blog?
9. How do you get people motivated around issues with blogs like the March of Dimes Share Your Story site does?
10. How do you teach blog etiquette (the one person who makes it a personal platform - me me me )?
11. What are the advantages between blogs and message boards? What are the differences between blogs, wikis, message boards, etc and how do I decide which to use? In combination?
12. Are people using blogs as community building tools? Examples?

History Podcast

Interesting article titled "Podcast technology helps students at home" about a history teacher podcasting.

Here is part of the article-

Some students usually can't wait to get out of class. Others, such as 14-year-old Adrienne Graskemper, can't wait to listen to her teacher Eric Langhorst again and again and again.

Langhorst is an eighth-grade history teacher in the Liberty School District, and his secret weapon is podcasting. He is among a handful of teachers who use podcasts to help students review for exams and to supplement their education outside the classroom.

Because podcasting is relatively new, it's difficult to gauge how widespread it is in the classroom. Education experts specializing in information technology simply say the number is small.

Podcasts are like radio shows that can be downloaded to a personal computer or an MP3 player, allowing listeners to tune in anytime, anywhere.

Langhorst's Web site - speakingofhistory.blogspot.com - is a mix of blogging and podcasting. Blogs are online diaries that allow readers to post feedback.

On the site, Langhorst interviews civic leaders and a television director. He has links to other sites that he thinks are interesting. He reviews lessons so students can better prepare for tests, and he hosts a forum for student comments.

"It's just another tool to create an environment in which
they want to learn about history," he said.

And students seem to appreciate his efforts. "I listen to it before I go to sleep," Graskemper said. "I think it makes social studies easier than my other classes."

The complete article is at Podcast technology helps students at home and the blog is at Speaking of History...

Blogging - Ways Nonprofits Can Use Blogs

I read a very interesting blog entry written by Britt on Netsquared titled "10 Ways Nonprofits Can Use Blogs".

After reading this entry, I started thinking of ways different places can use blogs. I realized some of these 10 ways can also be applied to nonprofit technology consultants and to technology companies providing services to nonprofits.

Nonprofit Technology Conference 2006 Logo Collage

Even though I will not be attending NTC, I created a logo collage of all the science fair exhibitors and sponsors. This idea was mentioned on the N-TEN Blog and I decided to volunteer to create it.

Educational Technology Links #1

• CU Online
  Education Technology News and Resources for PK-12 Teachers and Student Teachers
• Syndication for Higher Ed
  Exploring emerging practice in RSS, podcasting, and blogging on Higher Ed websites.
• collegewebeditor.com: web, marketing & PR in higher ed
  News, tips and ideas for people taking care of websites and online marketing in colleges and universities.
• Ideas and thoughts from an EdTech
• http://misterteacher.blogspot.com/
• Reflections of a Techie

Technorati

I was browsing Blogher and found an interesting entry titled What is Technorati Anyway? . It was very interested to read the conversation there. From that entry I learned about another blog entry about Technorati titled Technorati and Moveable Type.

What do you think about Technorati?

Nonprofit Blogs

Listed below are new nonprofit blogs I have found that I would like to share with my readers.

• NSBA's Daily Weblog
• Green Coast Post
• So what can I do?
• Getting The Message Out
• Change Up - ICT for Community Development
• Open Source CU - Credit Union Blog

Target sued over inaccessible site

A blind UC Berkeley student has filed a class-action lawsuit against Target Corp., saying the retailer is committing civil-rights violations because its Web site is inaccessible to those who cannot see.

Read the rest of the article at Blind Cal student sues Target Suit charges retailer's Web site cannot be used by the sightless

Find out more information about this case at Taking Aim at Target(.com)

What are your thoughts about this?

Analysis of Nonprofit Blogs

In a recent post on Netsquared, I mentioned some tags that could be used in the nonprofit sector. I then decided to search blogs to see how often these terms have been used in blogs.

I used Blogpulse to see the trends of these terms over the last 6 months. I analyzed 28 terms and created 12 different graphs. I used 2-3 similiar terms for each graph. I saved a screenshot of each graph and uploaded the image to Flickr. For each term, I figured out the lowest percentage and highest percentage of all blog posts containing the term.

Listed below are the terms I used, how I grouped them, the link to the graph image, and link to Blogpulse 6 month trend url:

1. activism (0.011%- 0.076%) , advocacy (0.014%- 0.056%), advocate (0.042%- 0.117%)
   graph and 6 month trend on Blogpulse
2. activist (0.037%- 0.149%) and activists (0.025%- 0.103%)
   graph and 6 month trend on Blogpulse
3. charitable (0.021% - 0.12%), charities (0.021% - 0.304%), and charity (0.1% - 0.403%)
   graph and 6 month trend on Blogpulse
4. donate (0.079% -1.052%) , donation (0.059% -0.046%) , and donations (0.075% -0.611%)
   graph and 6 month trend on Blogpulse
5. donor (0.021% -0.166% ) and donors (0.014% -0.046% )
   graph and 6 month trend on Blogpulse
6. foundation (0.166% -0.334%) and foundations (0.023% -0.072%)
   graph and 6 month trend on Blogpulse
7. ngo (0.018% - 0.051%) and ngos (0.003% - 0.012%)
   graph and 6 month trend on Blogpulse
8. non-profit (0.02% - 0.09%) and non-profits (0% -0.01%)
   graph and 6 month trend on Blogpulse
9. nonprofit (0.012% -0.056%) and nonprofits (0.001% -0.009%)
   graph and 6 month trend on Blogpulse
10. npo (0.001% -0.011%) and npos (0% -0.001%)
    graph and 6 month trend on Blogpulse
11. philanthropic (0.002% -0.022%) and philanthropy (0.002% -0.016%)
    graph and 6 month trend on Blogpulse
12. volunteer (0.069% -0.356%) , volunteering (0.02% -0.101%) , and volunteers (0.046% -0.253%)
    graph and 6 month trend on Blogpulse
    

Graph Interpretations:

1. In group one, I noticed advocate was written about the most out of these three terms. Advocacy and activism were mentioned the most in blog entries during between December 9th-27th. I will keep these three terms in my list of terms to analyze.
2. In group two, both activist and activists were mentioned in blogs about the same. I also noticed that activist was mentioned the most between December 9th-27th. I will keep both these terms in my list of terms to analyze.
3. In group three, I noticed charity was written about the most out of these three terms. All three terms (charity, charities, and charitable) were mentioned the most between August 23rd and September 10th, which was around the time of the hurricanes. I will keep all three terms in my list of terms to analyze.
4. In group four, I noticed all three terms were mentioned in blogs about the same. Each term (donate, donation, donations) was written about the most between August 23rd and September 10th. Again, this was around the time of the hurricanes. During that time donate was mentioned the most. I will keep these three terms in my list of terms to analyze.
5. In group five, I noticed both donor and donors were mentioned in blogs about the same. They both were written about the most between November 21st and December 9th. During that time donor was was mentioned the most. I will keep both of these terms in my list of terms to analyze.
6. In group six, foundation was mentioned the most. For my list of terms to analyze, I will keep foundation in my list but will remove foundations.
7. In group seven, ngo was mentioned the most. For my list of terms to analyze, I will keep ngo in my list but will remove ngos.
8. In group eight, non-profit was mentioned the most. For my list of terms to analyze, I will keep non-profit in my list but will remove non-profits.
9. In group nine, nonprofit was mentioned the most. For my list of terms to analyze, I will keep nonprofit in my list but will remove nonprofits.
10. In group ten, npo was mentioned the most. For my list of terms to analyze, I will keep npo in my list but will remove npos.


11. In group eleven, both terms (philanthropy and philanthropic) were mentioned in blogs about the same. I will keep both of these terms in my list of terms to analyze.


12. In group twelve, volunteer was mentioned the most in blogs. Volunteers was mentioned the most after volunteer, and volunteering was mentioned the least out of these terms. Each term was written about the most during August 23 and September 10th, which was around the time of the hurricanes. This graph is very interesting. The lines do not intersect all. I I will keep both of these terms in my list of terms to analyze

Overall Results:

From this analysis I found out that these non-profit related terms were less than 1% of all blogs in the blogosphere. The only term that reached 1% was donate.

In conclusion, I have decided that there needs to be more non-profit related blogs and blog entries.

I have narrowed down my 28 terms to 24 terms to analyze in the future. I will write more analysis posts in the future.

What does this have to do with tags?

In my opinion, blogs are used the most of the emerging technologies. If these terms are mentioned in blogs, then most likely they will be used as tags. I now have a list of 24 tags to use to reach people interested in nonprofits that may not be part of nonprofit technology.

Blogs and RSS Feeds

It has come to my attention that some people do not understand blogs and RSS feeds.

Here are some links for more information on these topics:

• Blog Definition from Wikipedia
• RSS Definition from Wikipedia
• RSS for Nonprofits
• An Introduction to Weblogs
• Ready to Start Blogging
• Should your nonprofit launch a blog?
• What's a Blog, and Why Should Nonprofits Care?
• How Non-Profit Organizations and Local Governments Can Use Blogs to Communicate with the Public
• Weblogg-ed - The Read/Write Web in the Classroom : RSS Quick Start Guide for Educators

"Digital Divide" in nonprofit websites - Updated Version

About a year ago I posted an entry titled "Digital Divide" in nonprofit websites. Since then I have become very involved with nonprofit technology projects (like nptech and net2) and learned all about emerging technologies.

Since I am now interested in seeing which nonprofits use emerging technologies on their website, I have realized there is even more of a "digital divide" in nonprofit websites.

Here are 6 groups I have come up with to describe the gap:

1. This group has added a blog, rss feeds, and/or podcasts to their website. Their web content is updated regularly. Their website is also designed well.
2. This group has a well designed website. Their website content is updated regularly. They are familiar with emerging technologies and are looking into ways to add them to their website.
3. This group has had a website for years. They are up to date with web design. They have heard about emerging technologies but do not understand them. They keep their website content updated as much as they can.
4. This group has a website, but there is still room for improvement. They have an updated website which does not have much content. They are ready to redesign their site and add more content to it. They do not know anything about emerging technologies.
5. This group has a website but it lacks usability and has not been updated in years. The content on the website is outdated.
6. This group does not have a website. They do not know how a website can help their organization.

Most Popular Entry and Tagging My Blog Entries

It's been a year since I started this blog.

My most popular entry so far is Tagging Bookmarks with del.icio.us for Educators .

How do I know this?

I use del.icio.us to bookmark, share, and tag my entries. This helps me see how many people bookmark my blog entries.

As of now 19 other users have bookmarked that entry on del.icio.us.

The tags I used were blog, education, technology, edtech, tagging, del.icio.us, tag , and tags.

Here is the tag list and the number of users who used each tag:

• education (12)
• del.icio.us (12)
• reference (7)
• tagging (4)
• folksonomy (3)
• delicious (3)
• elearning (3)
• blog (3)
• tags (3)
• technology (3)
• tag (2)
• bookmarking (2)
• edtech (1)
• deliciousineducation (1)
• socialsoftware (1)
• highereducation (1)
• ideastoremember (1)
• vate (1)
• guide(1)

It's interesting to see how many tags were used to bookmark this entry.

Other observations about this entry:

• As of now, there are at least 8 blogs or websites referencing this blog entry.
• Seven people commented on this entry.