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.