nptech.info

p span class="inline inline-right"img src="http://www.nten.org/sites/nten/files/images/2355932953_4cba31182d.thumbnail.jpg" alt="NTEN is People! (Flickr: kalabird)" title="NTEN is People! (Flickr: kalabird)" class="image image-thumbnail" width="100" height="67" /span class="caption" style="width: 98px;"strongNTEN is People! (Flickr: kalabird)/strong/span/spanem(Note: This is a weekly round-up of NTEN members doing and sharing their nptech awesome. strongMembers are in bold/strong. Tag your own news with quot;nten memberquot; or quot;nptechquot; to help us find your awesome online, or contact Annaliese with your updates.)  /em /p p This week, I want to point to a few different kinds of member news and buzz. There are a lot of great discussions going on within the NTEN community: /p p gt; a href="http://groups.nten.org/ntendiscuss"NTEN Discuss/a. There's always great discussion and debate about nonprofit tech topics here, along with some really helpful resource sharing. This week, for example, NTEN members like strongJohanna Bates/strong, strongPeter Campbell/strong, strongDean Matsueda/strong, strongDavid Geilhufe/strong, and many more debated the topic of privacy issues on social networks (a la Facebook recently) and whether that would drive more nonprofits to customized open source options for their communities. a href="http://groups.nten.org/login.htm?mode=register"Join the community here/a, and then a href="http://groups.nten.org/ntendiscuss"join the NTEN Discuss group here/a. /p p gt; a href="http://groups.nten.org/DCTechClub"DC 501 Tech Club/a. This week, they've been tackling both community work space options in the DC area, plus they got all geeky and talked about infrastructure options: 1 or 2 IS DB for your team?  If you know what that means, and you work in DC, a href="http://groups.nten.org/dctechclub"you should join the group here/a. Thanks to NTEN members strongNate Solloway/strong, strongChris Parks/strong, strongJordan Dossett/strong, strongJono Smith/strong, and many others for sharing tips and ideas there. /p p gt; a href="http://facebook.com/nten.org"NTEN Facebook Page/a. We ask very important questions of the NTEN community on our wall -- questions like what we should do with leftover 10NTC candy, and how can you stay focused in the office after staying up late to watch the finale of emLost/em, and what would be a good logo theme for us for June (my personal favorite). (We also ask about your thoughts on Facebook privacy policies, and where we should hold our 2013 NTC, so it's not emall/em fun and games, people!) If you'd like to weigh in on these community discussions, a href="http://facebook.com/nten.org"you should join us here/a. Special thanks to strongDavid Krumlauf/strong, strongDustin Alexander/strong, strongJeff Forster/strong, strongTrish Groves/strong, strongHilary Mughloo/strong, and many, many more of our NTEN members who indulge us there. /p p gt; a href="http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1053"NTEN Members LinkedIn Group/a. If you want advice and recommendations on nonprofit tech resources, then NTEN members in our LinkedIn group are who you should ask. This group has become a really streamlined resource for members to get questions answered. (That's what the Qamp;A discussion tool is all about, right?) If you're a member of NTEN, you should a href="http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1053"join us here/a.  Thanks especially to strongAsh Shepherd/strong, strongKathi Apostolidis/strong, strongRick Christ,/strong strongChristine Dattilo/strong, strongKyla Cromer/strong, and many, many more members participating there! /p p And, if you're in the New York city area, you should definitely check out this upcoming 501 Tech Club event: /p p ul lia href="http://501technycjune10-tw.eventbrite.com/"gt; Who's Your Mayor? FourSquare and location-based social networks for Nonprofits./a June 30. Hear from the co-founder of Foursquare plus the Technology Director of the Brooklyn Museum!/li /ul /pdiv class="image-clear"/divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nten/~4/qEP9CgLyZmg" height="1" width="1"/

pspan class="inline inline-left"img src="http://www.nten.org/sites/nten/files/images/weave.thumbnail.jpg" alt="Flickr photo: Cindy47452" title="Flickr photo: Cindy47452" class="image image-thumbnail" width="100" height="75" /span class="caption" style="width: 98px;"strongFlickr photo: Cindy47452/strong/span/spanOne of the things we know to be true about the work we do: we can't do it alone./ppNo single organization can tackle hunger in its community. No single entity can protect and preserve open spaces. The issues we address, whether on our block, our neighborhood, our city, or on our planet, are not one-dimensional. They require multi-dimensional answers. That means we all have to work together. /ppThat's why I find the concept of a href="http://networkweaver.blogspot.com/2010/04/what-is-network-weaver.html"quot;network weavingquot;/a so intriguing, and was delighted to chat with one of its originators, a href="http://www.networkweaving.com/june.html"June Holley/a. Network weaving is about bringing together all the people (and their networks) that can help solve a problem. For many of us, who have been thinking about social networks a lot -- okay, obsessively -- the main reason to bring networks together is to give us more resources. More people is always better, right?/ppBut what June brings to the conversation is something altogether different. For her, the primary benefit of network weaving is to bring a diversity of experience and opinion to the table that, when managed properly, enriches the experience.  /ppI love that! It's something I really value about the NTEN community: not only do we have a variety of technology opinions, we are all doing a variety of work, for a variety of causes. I mean, the a href="https://www.ntenonline.org/eweb/DynamicPage.aspx?webcode=SessionDetailsamp;ses_key=a0f0f3ae-e996-4a8d-b6ea-3aa13f7fb3af"RNC presented at the 10NTC/a!/ppSome other things I learned about network weaving during our talk:/pul liIt DOES mean that you will do a lot more collaboration. But that doesn't mean everyone has to agree all the time. There can be light collaborations./li liAlso implicit is experimentation. When you bring networks together, you don't know what will happen, so you have to be prepared to try new things./li liNetwork weaving, working in and with groups, means there isn't a lot of room for ego. How does any one organization take credit for something undertaken by the crowd?/li liReflection is a key part of the network weaving process. Taking the time to think about what you've been through together -- and documenting it -- makes the whole group stronger for the next go-around./li/ulpYou can a href="http://media.libsyn.com/media/nten/Ask_the_Expert__June_Holley_on_Network_Weaving.mp3"listen to the entire recording /aof our Ask the Expert session with June for more great tidbits. Also, a href="http://www.bethkanter.org/"Beth Kanter/a, June, and others did a little network weaving at the 10NTC a href="https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AVYkRpDPQhKmZHRtc3o0Yl8zancybXZ6cnEamp;hl=en"and documented it all for you/a! The document includes links to some great resources. /ppOne more thing struck me. I'm still thinking about a href="http://www.amazon.com/Here-Comes-Everybody-Organizing-Organizations/dp/1594201536"Here Comes Everybody/a, by a href="http://www.shirky.com/"Clay Shirky/a. The central question from that book is: What does it mean to be an organization, in a world where anyone and everyone can self-organize? I think network weaving may answer that question. /pdiv class="image-clear"/divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nten/~4/R-z9LQKJFc8" height="1" width="1"/

span class="inline inline-left"img src="http://www.nten.org/sites/nten/files/images/number_cakes.gif" alt="" title="" class="image image-_original" width="200" height="165" //span p This year's a id="f7hu" href="/ntc" title="NTC"NTC/a brought strong1,430/strong nonprofit professionals to the OMNI Hotel in Atlanta GA. Unlike in past years, we had a large number of late registrants: strong18%/strong of attendees registered in the month prior to the conference. /p p As many of you know, we raised strong$10,020/strong to send strong61 /strongpeople to the NTC on a id="nbic" href="/ntc-scholarships" title="scholarship"scholarship/a, which has (so far) resulted in strong556/strong views of the a id="8o" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFqt-YuBqtU" title="NTEN Community Rhapsody"NTEN Community Rhapsody/a. Judging by the strong7,034/strong views of the 09NTC Scholarship campaign (a id="eq0h" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdM80GPOU0Iamp;feature=related" title="Holly#039;s remake of Beyonce#039;s Single Ladies video"Holly's remake of Beyonce's Single Ladies video/a), I've concluded that spandex is strong12 /strongtimes more interesting to our community than muppets.  /p p Day strong1/strong of the conference saw strong122 /strongattendees volunteer to help strong58 /strongorganizations during the a id="su50" href="/ntc-dos" title="Day of Service"Day of Service/a, while strong50 /strongof you attended the a id="q3_l" href="/ntc-learn#unconference" title="Open Data Unconference"Open Data Unconference/a and strong139/strong went to a id="fl86" href="/ntc-learn#wearemedia" title="We Are Media"We Are Media/a Sessions. Also on Thursday, there were strong16 /stronga id="m5vx" href="/ntc-connect#affinity" title="Affinity Group"Affinity Group/a sessions; we like to think they were attended by the remainder of the strong70%/strong of conference attendees who checked-in at registration on Thursday. /p p Thursday also included the a id="ecfs" href="/ntc-learn#sciencefair" title="Science Fair"Science Fair/a, which had an all time high of strong92/strong a id="ps0i" href="https://www.ntenonline.org/EWEB/DynamicPage.aspx?webcode=NTCExhibitorList" title="exhibitor booths"exhibitor booths/a. Meanwhile, there were strong11 /strongpermanent exhibitors in the Sponsor Showcase and strong18 /strongin the a id="ps8o" href="/ntc/gcn" title="Georgia Pavilion"Georgia Pavilion/a. While multiple exhibitors reported handing out between strong300/strong and strong400/strong fliers, only strong6/strong lucky winners won iPads during the conference.  /p p A big thanks to over strong40 /stronga id="txrr" href="/ntc-sponsor" title="sponsors"sponsors/a! Together with our exhibitors, they committed strong$344,900.00/strong to the NTC, just under strong50%/strong of our total income. /p p Where did that income go? Well, The biggest chunk, strong$227,044.42/strong, was spent on catering and beverages, which comes out to be strong$158.77/strong per person and strong$26.46/strong per person per meal. /p p strong$38,071.01/strong were spent on printing and copying; this includes all printed materials, including your program book. It cost strong$10,458.22/strong for tote bags -- which we have to admit, we did run out of because of all the last minute registrations. We spent strong$57,025.98/strong on the awesome team of outside consultants who help a id="bh4g" href="/Staff" title="NTEN#039;s staff"NTEN's staff/a of strong6 /strongpull it all off. /p p Together with the rest of supplies, travel, facilities, AV, payroll and advertising, our total expenses were strong$643,673.38. /strongWith strong1,430 /strongattendees that comes out to strong$450/strong per person to put on the show. The strong18.5%/strong of you who registered at the early bird rate of strong$359.00/strong got a great deal on registration! /p p Throughout the conference, strong293 /strongspeakers presented strong134 /stronga id="ptst" href="https://www.ntenonline.org/EWEB/DynamicPage.aspx?Site=NTENamp;Webcode=NTCSessionsCurrent" title="sessions"sessions/a. Each session was scheduled for strong1.5/strong hours, which means 10NTC had strong201/strong hours full of learning.  /p p Those of you who recall the a href="/blog/2010/04/19/how-twitter-makes-vegetarians-happy-10ntc"Vegetarian Lunch Scandal of April 9th, 2010/a and the subsequent solution that came out of your tweets will be happy to hear that there were a total of strong7,903/strong tweets tagged #10NTC. The session with the most tweets (strong398)/strong was a id="e91s" href="https://www.ntenonline.org/eweb/DynamicPage.aspx?webcode=SessionDetailsamp;ses_key=d9fa27ac-23be-4978-81f9-3c62a60a1bef" title=" Using Social Media to Power Social Networks for Change"The Networked Nonprofit: Using Social Media to Power Social Networks for Change/a. We think this is a testament to the speakers knowing their material. (We're looking at you Beth Kanter amp; Allison Fine.) /p p This was the first year that we've offered remote viewing parties for the NTC -- strong3 /strongof them, to be precise -- one in NY, one in DC and one in Austin. Our a id="u7e7" href="/ntc-live" title="live streamed sessions"live streamed sessions/a had a concurrent viewing high of strong660/strong.  /p p On the most popular night of the conference, NTC attendees took over strong55%/strong of the hotel, staying in strong589 /strongof the strong1,070/strong rooms. They traveled far and wide to attend the conference. This year we had strong61 /stronginternational attendees; admittedly, strong30 /strongof those were from Canada, but the rest spanned the globe. From our rudimentary research, the furthest attendees came was from Singapore amp; Australia. (Anna and I tried to figure out which was further, but then remembered that the world is round and we don't know which direction the planes flew.) /p p As for U.S. attendees, we had strong174/strong from our host state Georgia and, surprisingly, the most represented state was last year's host, California, with strong188 /strongattendees. Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa and North Dakota all represented with strong1 /strongattendee per state.   /p p Lastly, we tried something new this year with a QR code NTC scavenger hunt, which the NTEN staff thought would be super fun. But only strong30 /strongof you were geeky enough to agree with us and complete it. Maybe next year in DC... /pdiv class="image-clear"/divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nten/~4/GYEPvhCnkcY" height="1" width="1"/

pimg src="http://www.nten.org/sites/nten/files/images/dottie_hodges.gif" img src="http://www.nten.org/sites/nten/files/images/liz_murphy.gif" img src="http://www.nten.org/sites/nten/files/images/eric_werner.gif" img src="http://www.nten.org/sites/nten/files/images/jomarie_hoholik.gif" br / strongDottie Hodges, a href="http://www.northridgeinteractive.com/Pages/Home.aspx"Northridge Interactive/a, Liz Murphy, a href="http://www.redenginedigital.com/"RedEngine Digital/a, Eric Werner, a href="http://www.northridgeinteractive.com/Pages/Home.aspx"Northridge Interactive/a, amp; JoMarie Hoholik, a href="http://www.balanceinteractive.com/"Balance Interactive/a/strong/p p There's not a single client we work with who doesn't want to be catapulted to the top of search engine rankings. Most clients do recognize there is quot;workquot; required to make this happen. Unfortunately, the old days of simply adding meta data to your pages or quot;submittingquot; them to search engines no longer works like a charm. (And when we say old, that's relative: we are talking ten years ago.) /p p Search engine optimization (SE0) is like a moody tween at best. Seemingly unpredictable, ever-changing, and sometimes hostile, the algorithms to which we bow are actually more of an evolution. That Mystical Black Box at Google contains logic that evolves daily to... you know what? /p p (This is shocking.) /p p Serve the user and the user's needs! /p p emHow dare they!/em /p p It's true. So, as you collectively develop web sites to recruit, engage, retain, and cultivate your constituents, you must ensure your content in fact meets the needs of your target audiences. In order for your site to be truly OPTIMIZED for the search engines, you'll need: /p ul liTo be free of technical issues that would hinder spidering/li liA conversion-focused content approach/li liEach page optimized for unique keywords with unique title tags and content/li liA strong internal linking strategy/li liFresh content/li liInbound links/li /ul p To be successful, however, you need to go beyond having your site be just quot;search engine FRIENDLYquot; and instead want your site to be quot;search engine OPTIMIZEDquot; so that your Web pages come up on page one of a search results page for specific, relevant, and traffic-driving search phrases. /p p But how?  /p p strong1. KNOW THY AUDIENCES. /strong /p p How can you reach target audiences if you don't explore who they are? Ultimately, you have to know enough about them to know what they're seeking -- and how they're doing so. For your issues, what keywords are people actually using? What kind of information are they seeking? Are there enough issues to make it worthwhile to apply the resources necessary to rank for those phrases? You also need to consider what our ultimate goal is for these individuals: Are you seeking to educate? Recruit? Raise money? All of the above? /p p If your goal is action-related (donations, email signups, actions, etc.), then look at adding a strong call to action on pages that are already ranked high for a related phrase -- or consider building a newly optimized page whose focus is completely conversion-focused. This page can in turn be used as a destination landing page for targeted pay-per-click or affinity marketing efforts. (And yes: that's another article entirely.) /p p Don't be afraid to get down and dirty with your data and explore how users have found you in the past. Look at competitor or partner organizations and see how they position themselves vis-a-vis keywords. Pull some metrics on your PPC keyword traffic and conversions; it changes daily and trends emerge and shift. /p p This might be a great opportunity to get insights from a seasoned consultant: put together the best keyword list you have and send it to someone who has had years of experience in the search engine landscape. A little bit of direction in your keyword strategy can work wonders for you over the long term and set you up for success and self-reliance. /p p strongEstablishing the keywords that are important and relevant to your organization and the audiences you target is the single most important first step to serve as the strategic roadmap for your optimization efforts./strong /p p strong /strong /p p Consider these keyword research tools to help you: /p ul liGoogle keyword research tool (sktool)/li liCompete.com Search Analytics/li liTrellian/li liSpyFu.com/li liSEM Rush/li liSearch Engines' quot;Related Searchesquot; Suggestions/li /ul p strong2. BUILD WITH SEO IN MIND/strong /p p Simply put, search engines reward reinforcement of keyword concepts. Architecting your site with your most important keywords in mind as well as filling the site with content relevant to those keywords will be the critical driving factor in dramatically improving performance. /p p Why is this relevant? Not only does it help drive you to a site structure that will be effective for your human visitors -- one where they easily find what they're looking for because the keyword terms they're using are used throughout your site -- but it also creates a high-yield environment for computer spiders that scan sites for content. To optimize SEO performance, it is critical to have an information architecture and content set driven by keywords. This means if you're redesigning your Web site, you optimize emduring/em the build, and emwhile/em you are writing content, not after. /p p How do you do it? Places to repeat and reinforce keywords in a natural language way: /p ul liPage Titles/li liNavigation (E.g. if your organization assists people in finding daycares, make the navigation label quot;Choosing a Daycarequot; not quot;Making the Decisionquot;.)/li liHeadlines/li liBody Copy (Your content should support the keywords for the page; if it doesn't, then either the copy or the keywords need to change.)/li liAlt tags for images/li /ul p If you can't answer the question, quot;What two or three keywords are we trying to get this page to rank for?quot;, then go back to step one. If you can answer that question, then ensure that those variations on those keywords are included in the elements listed above. /p p The page title holds a huge amount of weight, but the search engines consider the words furthest to the left to be most important, so put your important keywords near the beginning of your title. /p p Also remember that you should always think about your human visitors first, and consider what will appear compelling to them. Don't do anything in the spirit of optimization that won't be understandable, readable, and motivating to your audiences. In a perfect world, if you're doing it right, one will be a natural evolution of the other. /p p strong3. DEVELOP A CONTENT STRATEGY -- FOR OTHER WEBSITES!/strong /p p Developing content to be housed on other people's websites can work wonders for your SEO campaigns. This is because one of the biggest ranking factors are inbound links from other websites -- but you don't necessarily want links from just any website. In fact, being associated with bad neighborhoods can actually be a negative. /p p In a perfect world, you want links from emhighly relevant /emand emauthoritative/em sites in your niche. One way to do that is to create great content and ask them if they would put it on their website with links back to you. Again, search algorithms reinforce good (and relevant!) behavior. /p p A few tips for external content placement and linking: /p ul liDon't just point links to your home page/li liDevelop links to the deep pages of your site where the quot;good stuffquot;; (most relevant content) lives/li liMatch the keywords you are targeting with anchor text for the links themselves/li liAcquire links from diverse sources/li /ul p emBonus Tip: Find out who is linking to you and get in touch. Sometimes you can ask them to point more links to your site or to change the anchor text to something that is even more targeted. If it is an image link, then ask them to make the alt text include your target keyword./em /p p strong4. KEEP IT GOING/strong /p p All of this work is not to be performed once and then put on a shelf to gather dust. You have to keep at it or your performance will wither on the vine along with your efforts. /p p Continued development of fresh and relevant content as well as modification of titles and other on-page factors should adjust for changes in your strategy as your program work -- and the online landscape -- evolves over time. Continue to look at referring traffic from important search phrases to see how things are evolving on a monthly basis. Look at your web analytics reports to find out what keywords are resulting in people taking the kinds of actions you want them to take on the website. /p p There are more than 31 wonderful flavors of effort for how to execute and manage SEO: self-taught, self-executed, sole reliance upon vendor, some combination thereof, initial engagement with self-reliance for maintenance, and every combination of these under the sun. Regardless of your particular organization's scope of effort, you can accomplish great things by expending a little effort up front to get a strong strategic direction and paint an effective keyword landscape. Then the execution of that direction can scale according to your internal and external resources over time. /p p Happy optimization! /pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nten/~4/a1h_y7vJpBY" height="1" width="1"/

pAt the 2010 Nonprofit Technology Conference, we -- a href="http://www.twitter.com/cariegrls"Carie Lewis/a, a href="http://www.twitter.com/kanter"Beth Kanter/a, a href="http://www.twitter.com/daveiam"David J. Neff/a and a href="http://www.twitter.com/jordanv"Jordan Viator/a -- had the great opportunity to lead a session entitled quot;a href="http://www.slideshare.net/jordanev/real-house-wives-of-social-media"The Real Housewives of Social Media/aquot;. a href="/events/webinar/2010/05/21/real-housewives-social-media"Funny Photoshopped pictures/a were displayed of us, we sported aprons to hype the theme, and we shared information and case studies on various aspects of social media campaigning./ppnbsp;/pa name="dave" title="dave"/apstrongThe Strategy /strongbr /by a href="http://501derful.org/about/"David Neff/a of a href="http://www.ridgewoodpr.com/"Ridgewood: Ingenious Communication Strategies/a/ppIf 2009 was the year everyone and their mom jumped into the social media pool, then 2010 is the year of strategy. It's time to go beyond listening and responding and get into several key areas: strongmonitoring/strong, strongrunning bold campaigns/strong, strongadding video/strong, and strongfundraising/strong in online social networks./ppWhile I was with the American Cancer Society, we were inspired by an amazing monitoring system developed by the Humane Society. They built an iGoogle dashboard and fed RSS feeds based on information they were seeking in online social networks. /ppYou can make one, too: type in Cancer (or your own keyword) at a href="http://search.twitter.com/"search.twitter.com/a and see what results are returned. Then, grab the search RSS feed and add it to your iGoogle. Now, anyone can log in to monitor this. We used this technique for DIGG, forums, Twitter, Bing, and Google and then set up various searches along with monitoring of certain Twitter feeds./ppAdding fundraising to social media campaigns is another key focus area for nonprofits. In 2008, I helped start the Frozen Pea Fund against breast cancer. Each Friday in December, we asked people to donate the cost of a package of frozen peas to help fight breast cancer. When people logged in on Fridays, they saw a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/frozenpeafriday/"hundreds of frozen pea avatars/a from people who were fighting breast cancer. (Think of the impact the folks at Movember are having, only online.) You see something like that and ask quot;Hey! What's this all aboutquot;? BAM, time to tell the story. All this inspired by a single woman who had a breast cancer diagnosis and took one photo of herself holding a package of frozen peas on her chest./ppnbsp;/ppa name="jordan" title="jordan"/astrongThe Tools /strongbr /by a href="http://www.connectioncafe.com/authors/jordan-viator.html"Jordan Viator/a of a href="https://www.convio.com/"Convio/a/ppSocial media tools tend to be quot;bright, shiny objectsquot; with which organizations become enamored. But putting the cart before the horse -- or tools before the strategy -- should be avoided to ensure the effectiveness of your campaigns. /ppYou shouldn't choose the toolbox for your organization until after a strategy has been defined -- at which point the following should be considered: strongfish where the fish are/strong, stronguse tools that make sense for your audience/strong, strongknow there is no quot;one size fits allquot; plan/strong and strongmap tools directly to your strategy/strong./ppOnce the above points are addressed, the following toolsets can be considered, along with their fundamental attributes:/pblockquote p strongSocial Networks/strong allow for extensive networking, sharing personal interests, interconnecting groups, and sharing content with different groups. (Facebook, LinkedIn) /p p strongBlogs/strong offer a human voice, newsworthy information and experiences, and a forum for feedback -- and empower supporters to engage with and share ideas around your stories and news. (Wordpress, Typepad, Blogger, Convio CMS) /p p strongMicroblogging/strong enables real-time sharing of quot;bite-sizequot; information, quick news, and update links and real-time collaboration. (Examples: Twitter, Identi.ca, Plurk) /p p strongCommunities/strong present safe areas for select groups, can be private or open, have options for in-depth discussions or sensitive information, outlets for question/answer format and support around delicate topics. (ThePort, Ning) /p p strongMultimedia content sharing/strong is a powerful tool for storytelling, providing content that is easy to share and embed. It tends to be ideal when catering to the emotional side of issues and is well-utilized for user generated content. (YouTube, Vimeo, Flickr, Picassa) /p/blockquotepTwo examples of the above tools working for nonprofits include a remarkable a href="http://www.connectioncafe.com/posts/2010/may/leveraging-twitter-influencers-nonprofit-success-story.html"Twitter success story from Free The Kids/a and the creative use of social sharing in a href="http://www.pathfind.org/site/PageServer?pagename=Girl2Woman_index"Pathfinder's Girl2Woman/a./ppnbsp;/ppstrong /strong/pa name="carie" title="carie"/apstrongThe Secret Ingredient /strongbr /by a href="http://cariegrls.blogspot.com/2009/03/about-me.html"Carie Lewis/a of the a href="http://www./humanesociety.org"Humane Society of the United States/a/ppI'm convinced the secret ingredient in social media is DRAMA. You can't be knee-deep in social media activism without it. People are talking about you. The key is to be smart in your response: know when and how to say things -- and when to say nothing at all./ppWhy? Have you heard of a href="http://mashable.com/2008/11/16/motrin-moms/"Motrin Moms/a? a href="http://blog.seattlepi.com/amazon/archives/166384.asp"#Amazonfail/a? a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10220787-71.html"The Dominos Pizza Booger/a? (Ew!) These social media PR nightmares can happen to anyone. As a victim of a quot;twitterstormquot;, I have a few survival tips./pol liKnow there will be haters and know how to cope. Find someone who is thick-skinned to listen to the negativity and respond in a professional manner./li liIdentify the usual suspects and DNFTT (do not feed the trolls). Keep an internal list of your repeat offenders. Know when to respond and when not -- pay attention to people's tone and influence./li liBuild a monitoring system for your needs. NO ONE can afford to ignore what's being said about them. Planned attacks usually occur after business hours, so monitoring is not a 9-5 job. Our monitoring includes: ul liTweetdeck for iPhone/li liDual office monitors -- one for work, one for Tweetdeck/li liquot;As it happensquot; Google Alerts for name, acronym, CEO's name/li liAn iGoogle dashboard aggregating web alerts/li /ul /li liMake your commenting policy known and fair. Post your commenting policy on your Fan Page's info tab. If you delete something, tell your fans. If someone's abusing your policy, use blocking features. Be transparent./li liStay on top of the latest trends so you're prepared for quot;the next big thingquot;. Foursquare has been deemed the quot;Twitter of 2010quot;. How could it benefit your organization?/li liGet staff and executive buy-in. Get them on Facebook and Twitter. When you need resources or want to try something new, they'll quot;get itquot;!/li liBe proactive. Take the time to build your fan base and trust -- they'll defend you naturally. Follow, participate, and create hashtags and memes. Retweet followers, answer questions, and comment back. Develop volunteers, brand ambassadors, even employees!/li liHave a response process. We monitor sites in real time, evaluate what's necessary to respond to, develop responses with PR, deliver responses the same way generated, monitor following conversation and alert Communications in daily meetings./li liCrisis communications is not new -- just add social. Listen to quot;whatquot; and quot;whoquot;. If you don't know, SAY you don't! Watch your tone and be respectful of reactions. Explain how you'll address the specific issue and prevent it from happening again./li li Address the employee issue, the looming quot;social media policyquot;. Don't assume anything is common sense. My personal motto is never post something I wouldn't want my mother to see. Remember that what gets put on the Internet, stays on the Internet!/li/olpnbsp;/pa name="beth" title="beth"/apstrongThe measurement techniques/strongbr /by a href="http://www.bethkanter.org/about-beth/"Beth Kanter/a of a href="http://zoeticamedia.com/"Zoetica/a/ppIn covering measurement recipes, my points were simple:/pol listrongMeasuring Cup/strong: Identify the right results and pick the right metrics to measure it./li listrongEgg Timer:/strong Track your time, because working on social media can give you a href="http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_does_adolas_stand_for"ADOLAS/a: AD - Oh Look, A Squirrel! If you track your time and have specific tasks, you know what you're getting from your time investment. It's just one step away from looking at ROI. I had a funny picture of a Squirrel and shouted out Squirrel at random points during the presentation. This started a twitter hashtag #squirrel./li listrongFunnel: /strong Measure the whole funnel! I shared some a href="http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2010/01/birthday-reflection.html"learnings/a from my Birthday fundraiser on Twitter and Facebook. I talked about the importance of finding influencers at the first step and shared a few tips and tools. I shared some thoughts about using a href="http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2009/12/can-social-network-analysis-help-you-improve-your-social-media-strategy.html"Social Network Analysis/a tools toa href="http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2009/03/new-twitter-tool-mailana-helps-me-visualize-strong-ties-in-my-network.html" analyze your Twitter network/a./li listrongTest Kitchen/strong: Having low-risk a href="http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/experimentation/"experiments using metrics/a are very important. I shared a few points about how I use a href="http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2009/12/an-interview-with-avinash-kaushik-failling-fast-the-power-of-experimentation.html"A/B testing/a with my a href="http://www.facebook.com/beth.kanter.blog"Facebook Fan Page/a/li listrongSeason To Taste:/strong This was a point about actually a href="http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2009/01/using-metrics-and-insight-harvesting-to-track-and-improve-your-blog-content.html"looking at your data to reap insights/a./li/olpstrongIn Conclusion/strong/ppSocial media is an ever-changing area that becomes more exciting, more complex and better understood with each passing day. 2009 year was hyped with campaigns like a href="http://www.refresheverything.com/"Pepsi's Refresh Challenge/a and the a href="http://www.humanesociety.org/news/news/2009/09/ihops_animal_cruelty_091609.html"Humane Society's IHOP Campaign/a, and 2010 will no doubt be an exciting year with more lessons learned, established best practices and noteworthy case studies./ppIn the meantime, just remember: embe mindful of the strategy, quot;kitchen toolsquot;, measurement recipes, and secret ingredients most pertinent to your organization, and you can make your own personal recipe for success!/em/pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nten/~4/d8FLTP4Pimg" height="1" width="1"/

pimg src="http://www.nten.org/sites/nten/files/images/danielle_brigida.gif" align="left" img src="http://www.nten.org/sites/nten/files/images/peggy_duvette.gif" align="left" img src="http://www.nten.org/sites/nten/files/images/manny_hernandez.gif" align="left" strongDanielle Brigida, a href="http://www.nwf.org/"National Wildlife Federation/a, Peggy Duvette, a href="http://www.wiserearth.org/"WiserEarth/a and Manny Hernandez, a href="http://diabeteshandsfoundation.org"Diabetes Hands Foundation/a/strong/pp For a nonprofit organization, finding passionate people who are receptive to your message is the difference between getting your message heard and having it fall on deaf ears. Niche networks are smaller, more specific networks that can provide you with targeted, passionate audiences ready and waiting to hear what you have to say. /p p Whether you're looking to join and participate in niche networks for outreach purposes, or you have a network idea that you'd like to test out, niche networks should not be overlooked. The trick is to balance working with larger networks and some of the more specific networks to create a very useful and strategic approach to community building. /p p strongThe Value in Smaller Networks/strong /p p We all dream of having a billion fans on Facebook and gobs of Twitter followers, but for those who are active in the social media space, we know that the end goal should always be quality over quantity. We don't want thousands of disengaged supporters -- we want everyone we interact with to be engaged. /p p The benefit to investigating smaller networks is that you will find people passionate enough about something to want to build a community around it. The value added from smaller networks is that people are self-identifying and communicating something important to them in a public and approachable way. /p p If you're debating as to whether or not to start a niche network, think about whether the current online communities already serve a similar purpose. The point of a niche network is to be meaningfully unique and help foster a community that could benefit from an online presence. br / /p p strongAsk Yourself These Questions/strong /p ul liHow much time do I have to build out this community? (average 10-20 hours a week)/li liWhat is our niche?/li liWhat will keep people coming back to the community?/li liHow can I make it easier for them to visit and update the community?/li liWill the benefits outweigh the costs?/li /ul p These are all questions that will help you determine whether or not you are ready to invest the time it takes into starting your own niche community.  /p p strongThe Facts Are These:/strong /p p A majority of online niche networks are based around: /p ul liLocation/li liPassion/li liInterest/li liAn Existing Community/li /ul p Understanding why you're thinking of starting a niche network, or what reason a network started is a good way to understand the community on a different level. /p p strongMaintaining a Niche Network/strongbr / /p p Successful niche networks, like a href="http://www.Wiserearth.org"WiserEarth.org/a, a network built around sustainability and solutions for the world, and a href="http://www.tudiabetes.org/"TuDiabetes/a, a network that gathered together around living with Diabetes, are great examples of networks that could provide value to your organization. These two networks fill a niche for passionate users concerned about specific issues. /p p Here are some of the tips from those successful networks: /p ul liEngage with your community: imagine going to a party without a host!/li liEmpower your top users: those are the people that will bring not only value to your community but also very valuable feedback/li liInteract with people where they are: don't expect people to automatically come to your site/li /ul p strongFinding/strong stronga Niche Network/strong /p p If you're active in social media, you've probably gotten used to searching for what you're looking for. In your search engine of choice, type in keywords -- whether it's audience related, issue related or a location -- and make sure to add quot;social networkquot; or quot;listquot;. You may be surprised at what specific networks already exist. The more comfortable you become with searching and locating your ideal audience, the easier joining the tool they use will become. /p p strong Once you join a Community, Please Have a Soul/strong /p p Don't just immediately broadcast your message once you join a community follow these steps and be respectful of the community: /p ol listrongListen. /strongRead forums, conversations and posts from the active members of the community. Try and take notes about the more active members and extend a note that you are new and are looking for advice. /li listrongJoin the conversation. /strongStart commenting on posts and forums to establish your organization or self as a member that cares. Makes sure you're not self-serving—but offer up a perspective./li listrongTest and adapt. /strongAs you stay active you will eventually develop a good understanding of what works and what doesn't in the community -- now you can finally start adding value to the conversation./li listrongAdd value --  rinse and repeat./strong These things take time, but once you have decided to be a part of a passionate community they can me great focus groups for issues and usually have passionate leaders. Keep investing and it will be worth it!/li /ol p strongWhat will Outreach to the Community Do?/strong /p p Outreach to a niche community can be a very effective way to spend your time. Here are a few benefits the a href="http://www.nwf.org/"National Wildlife Federation/a has seen from our niche community outreach: /p ul liBetter website traffic quality/li liEnthusiastic participants who listen to what you're saying/li liRelevance to your topic: greater impact with your messages/li liGreat way to engage with thought leaders/li /ul p So now that we have established some benefits, it's up to you to decide what to do next! Feel free to reach out to Peggy, Manny, or myself and we'll be happy to give you tips on finding or creating a network for you! /pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nten/~4/O_p8D9QzHxs" height="1" width="1"/

pimg src="http://www.nten.org/sites/nten/files/images/john_merritt.gif" align="left" img src="http://www.nten.org/sites/nten/files/images/steve_heye.gif" align="left" strongJohn Merritt, a href="http://www.ymca.org/"YMCA of San Diego County/a and Steve Heye, a href="http://www.ymcachgo.org/"YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago/a/strong/p p There is often a powerful disconnect between the objectives of technologists and the direction of an organization's leadership team. Perhaps one of the most challenging questions a nonprofit can ask is, quot;What should our org's commitment to the use and leverage of technology actually be?quot; /p p In too many cases, tech becomes the elephant in the room: we see it, but tend to ignore the greater possibilities. Tech speaks it's own confusing language, when the only unifying language we all need to speak is MISSION. /p p There's no question that information technology and the instantaneous access to data, when properly used, can become a significant tool in meeting your organization's mission --  but acceptance and alignment still seem to be incongruent. There is little doubt that technology aligned and used properly can bring efficiency in extending and meeting goals in support of the mission. But: /p ul liWhat does the techie need to do to be heard and become a functional part of the fabric? How can a techie coexist in a world where tech doesn't have a seat the table?/li liWhat are the effects of culture and how can the techie adapt?/li liHow does the techie learn to listen to the needs, build relationships, and develop solutions that meet the organization's goals?/li liWhat is the quot;strategic planquot; and how does the lone technologist understand where they fit -- providing that orgs are thinking strategically and even have a strategic plan?/li liHow does the orgs technologist bring synergy while leaving the techno-babble behind?/li liHow do you separate the tactical from the strategic?/li liHow do you match tech to mission and what does that mean?/li liHow do you do all of this and never put technology in front of the mission?/li /ul p strongMatching Tech to Mission ~ Read amp; Understand the Strategic Plan/strong /p p Knowledge is power and one of the best places to seek knowledge about your organization is by reading the strategic plan. Techies often feel the strain of being quot;misunderstoodquot;; I would challenge each and every nonprofit technologist to begin by first understanding their organization. /p p Hidden in plain sight within every strategic plan lie the goals of the organization. The technologist, seeking to make him or herself invaluable, needs only to find these goals and begin the path to enlightenment and alignment. But identifying the goals is only the beginning. The next step is to understand the goals -- clearly. /p p Almost inevitably, the first reaction of the technologist is to set about emmeeting/em the goals, acting individually with no input from those who envisioned and created the goals. This is the wrong course of action. /p p Most good relationships being with understanding, a mutual agreement on a course of action or common direction. Here is a great quot;relationshipquot; moment for the technologist: seek out the person or team that created the strategic plan and ask them questions about the goals, learn from those who created the plan, and ask for clarification to attain a greater understanding of each goal's intent and purpose. /p p The goals within a strategic plan are mission-focused, created for the specific purpose of meeting or extending the organization's mission. As the technologist learns why each goal exists, through dialog with the goal's creators, they can begin the process of designing solutions that will leverage technology to meet the mission. /p p It can be a challenge to get an audience with the top leadership. You have to be creative: offer to meet over lunch, coffee, prepare a summary of what you see in the strategic plan that asks probing questions that could lead to mutual ideas and extended discussion; chocolate works, too. Making this meeting happen will take work. Be prepared for roadblocks and brushoffs, but don't give up. /p p Understanding how you can best support your organization via technology depends on the relationship you will and can forge with the leadership team. Reach out, build bridges and swallow your pride. After all, it's not about technology, it's about the mission. /p p strongIt's All About the Relationship ~ Getting Connected Even if You're Not Wanted/strong /p p How do you build a lasting and functional relationship with your organization even when you're rejected by the very people you struggle to support? You keep trying and you change your approach to meet each situation. /p p A great way to build relationships is to seek quot;championsquot;. We all have staff that can't get enough technology. They're always willing to try the next new gadget or adopt the latest social media tool. Reach out to and embrace these staff. Assist them in understanding technology and make them an extended part of your team. Staff quot;championsquot; can have a very positive affect on bringing technology to better support the organization. /p p The technologist must recognize and accept that, sometimes, you can't be a prophet in your own land (org). By harnessing and leveraging other people's enthusiasm for technology, you can build a cadre of tech-savvy staff who will assist you in bringing technology to meet the mission. /p p Another easy and effective plan to build relationships is something I call quot;3 Simple Thingsquot;: /p ol liHelp and ensure that staff understand what technology is available in your organization./li liTrain staff in the use of the organizations technology./li liActively solicit feedback on tech needs, including changes to existing technologies; when you receive feedback, follow through. Just because we're techies doesn't mean we know best. Some of the best ideas for the use and integration of technology will come from the staff./li /ol p Another great trick to use is the quot;quick winquot;. Find a tech project that meets a specific organizational need and can be quickly implemented with quick payback -- for example, a wiki to support a cross-departmental collaboration. quot;Quick Winsquot; can do wonders for building relationships in support of tech for the mission. /p p Never underestimate the power of relationships. The path to better relationships with your organization's top leaders begins with the frontline staff /p p strongWhat does a Strong Relationship Between Tech amp; Staff Look Like? ~ Metrics/strong /p p So, you've done your homework, read the strategic plan and your questions and relationship building have begun to bear fruit. What, then, does the tech/mission aligned organization look like? Have you really attained higher function? Here are a few examples in support of alignment and tech working in partnership with staff. /p ul liYou have a seat at the management table and actively work with leadership to extend the mission via the targeted use of technology./li liYou are part of the strategic planning process and technology goals are included in the strategic plan -- not as individual tech goals, but in support of the organizations strategic goals./li liYou are meeting regularly with key staff and department heads to evaluate needs and implement solutions./li liYou're proactively cultivating 'aha' moments with staff; it's all about the relationships, and the work you do to help staff quot;get itquot; will make it easier for the larger tech initiatives you are now working towards./li liYou're thinking quot;strategicallyquot; and functioning quot;tacticallyquot;./li liYou're developing quot;championsquot; to extend the reach of technology and help others realize their fullest potential for using technology to support the mission./li /ul p strongThe Organizational Chart ~ Look for Obstacles/strong /p p The way in which mission focused technology comes to be is largely based on the organizational chart, that funny diagram made up of boxes and lines that either puts tech on the path to success or the highway to, well... /p p Just as you review the strategic plan to finds the places where tech can be leveraged, you need to read your organizational chart and look for obstacles placed between I.T. and the mission. Obstacles could be simple things like tech staff residing at such a low level they become quot;order takersquot; -- or glaring challenges like a lack of I.T. staff. /p p Your task here is to minimize the obstacles via the development of relationships and an organizational analysis of I.T. that can awaken and visualize the needs. Don't try to fight the org chart as you will run smack into a quot;cultural barrierquot;, but look for ways to lower the hurdles. /p p strongConclusion/strong /p p quot;Forget the Tech, Let's Talk Missionquot; is about using the information and resources readily available in each of our orgs to develop questions and talking points to move technology closer to supporting the mission. Using available information and resources -- strategic plans, org charts and staff knowledge -- what questions can you ask that will bring better mission support and extension via technology? /p p Focus squarely on building relationships, don't jump to conclusions, and avoid being too tactical as the mission is purely strategic. In simple terms, this is I.T. / business alignment. /pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nten/~4/QJkPRoqeduQ" height="1" width="1"/

span class="inline inline-left"img src="http://www.nten.org/sites/nten/files/images/facebook-privacy.thumbnail.jpg" alt="" title="" class="image image-thumbnail" width="51" height="100" //spanpIt's been exciting to see so many conversations about privacy take place since Facebook announced that it would change the privacy settings we'd all finally figured out.  /ppAt NTEN, we think the line between public and private is fascinating: witness our upcoming event, a href="/events/webinar/2010/06/03/evolution-privacy-and-social-web"The Evolution of Privacy and the Social Web/a. In fact, it seems that the debate got so loud, Facebook had no choice but to act./ppFacebook held a call with the press today to outline a shift in their privacy settings. I just received an email outlining the broad changes. From the email:/pul liProvide an easy-to-use quot;masterquot; control that enables users to set who can see the content they share through Facebook. This enables users to choose, with just one click, the overall privacy level they're comfortable with for the content they share on Facebook. Of course, users can still use all of the granular controls we've always offered, if they wish./li liSignificantly reduce the amount of information that must be visible to everyone on Facebook. Facebook will no longer require that users' friends and connections are visible to everyone. Only Name, Profile Picture, Networks and Gender must be publicly available. Users can opt to make all other connections private./li liMake it simple to control whether other applications and websites access any user information. While a majority of our users love Facebook apps and Facebook-enhanced websites, some may prefer not to share their information outside of Facebook. Users can now opt out with just one click.
/li/ulpThere are also some great writeups already out there about how to use these settings and what they mean:/pul lia href="http://mashable.com/2010/05/26/new-facebook-privacy-controls"How Facebook's New Privacy Controls Work/a (Mashable)/li lia href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_rolls_back_some_key_privacy_changes.php"Facebook Rolls Back Some Key Privacy Changes/a (Read Write Web)/li lia href="http://www.allfacebook.com/2010/05/facebook-privacy-must-know"10 Things You Need to Know About Today's Privacy Changes/a (All Facebook)/li/ulpIt seems to me that we have a war of semantics going on. During the call, Mark Zuckerberg insisted that Facebook never actually changed any settings. I guess it depends on what your definition of quot;changequot; is, and a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/the_half_truths_of_mark_zuckerberg.php"I don't think his attitude/a is going to make people feel good about Facebook again. /ppDo today's changes actually address your concerns? Here are the major complaints we saw:/pol liIt's too hard. The new privacy settings were too cumbersome./li liNormal people wouldn't know to work so hard to protect themselves (a href="http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Reputation-Management/Summary-of-Findings.aspx?r=1"Pew thinks otherwise, FYI.)/a/li/olpWhat do you think?  Are the changes meeting your major complaints? /pdiv class="image-clear"/divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nten/~4/XGmCGufjopQ" height="1" width="1"/

p Last week, I had the good fortune to speak with some great organizations doing historic preservation work in the Western United States. By and large, these are small organizations that frequently rely on volunteers and working boards to fill all roles the organization needs to staff. So, after a presentation on marketing and social media, I was not surprised to hear a common question: /p p strongem quot;We're a small organization, so we can't do it all. What should we focus on?quot; /em/strong /p p It's a great question because it perfectly summarizes the conundrum of social media. /p p On the one hand, it's an extremely level playing field: social media tools require very little outlay of cash to use, so even small organizations can have big impacts. /p p On the other hand, small organizations often lack the thing social media does require, and requires a lot of: time. When you have to prepare the annual budget, oversee the programs, emand/em write the grants, the investment of time required to make social media work seems unrealistic. /p p Nevertheless, small organizations emare /emusing social media well. Beth Kanter and Allison Fine have documented some of the small organizations who used social media exceedingly well during the Case Foundation's America's Giving Challenge. (See a href="http://www.casefoundation.org/blog/agc-conversational-case-studies-students-for-a-free-tibet"Students for a Free Tibet/a and a href="http://www.casefoundation.org/blog/AGC-Conversational-Case-Studies-Darius-Goes-West"Darius Goes West/a.) /p p In the Students for a Free Tibet case study, Beth highlights that the organization has to make choices. It only enters one social media contest a year. They simply don't have the staff bandwidth for more. I wonder, though, what other choices they're making. Do they have a direct mail or direct e-mail program? Do they have a large scale PR effort? What other marketing and fundraising opportunities are they forgoing to make social media work for them? /p p Here at NTEN, we're in an interesting position. As a technology organization, we've always relied on electronic communications. We do very few mailings each year, which means that as we've grown, we've been able to prioritize social media, rather than shoehorning it into an already full plate of communications. /p p What about you, small organizations? Tell us how you fit social media onto your work plate? /p a href="http://polldaddy.com/poll/3248964/"Small Organizations: What DON'T You Do to Make Time for Social Media?/aspana href="http://polldaddy.com/features-surveys/"survey software/a/span /pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nten/~4/tphOa-jyid0" height="1" width="1"/

pem(Note: This is a weekly round-up of NTEN members doing and sharing their nptech awesome. Members are in bold. Tag your own news with quot;nten memberquot; or quot;nptechquot; to help us find your awesome online, or contact Annaliese with your updates.) /em/ppa href="http://www.bethkanter.org/welcome/#comment-61"Beth's new blog!/a (I like being able to just say quot;Bethquot; and know that most of you know who I mean: strongBeth Kanter/strong.) And true to her good form, Beth doesn't simply announcea href="http://www.bethkanter.org/welcome/#comment-61" her new site/a, she reflects on all the steps and experiences that got her to the new site, which is pretty informative and inspiring in itself(but that shouldn't surprise anyone who regularly reads Beth's Blog). She also gives props to strongAllyson Kapin/strong and strongJared Seltzer/strong of strongRad Campaign/strong for helping her build the new site. /ppstrongBeth Kanter/strong and strongAllison Fine/strongare investigating how nonprofits quot;a href="http://www.bethkanter.org/conversational-case-study-how-does-your-organization-vet-online-contest-opportunities-2/"vet online contest opportunities/a.quot; You a href="http://www.casefoundation.org/blog/agc-conversational-case-studies-students-for-a-free-tibet"can read a case study/a about one nonprofit, and a href="http://www.casefoundation.org/blog/agc-conversational-case-studies-students-for-a-free-tibet"participate in the discussion/a to share your experiences and learn from others.  /ppstrongClientTrack/strong is a href="http://www.clienttrack.com/WinClientTrackExpress.aspx"announcing a Give-Away/a: one lucky social service organization will be selected to receive a full use license of ClientTrack Express for one (1) year, including the server space you require at their secure data location. The total value of the prize could be up to $7,200. a href="http://www.clienttrack.com/WinClientTrackExpress.aspx"Find out more and enter your organization here/a (deadline is June 4).  /ppLook, we all know that social media isn't quot;the answerquot;for nonprofit fundraising. Many of you were debating this topic this week, especially in the a href="http://www.allfacebook.com/2010/05/facebook-appears-back-down-on-landing-tab-limitations/"(short-lived)avalanche of dissent/a in response to Facebook's announcement that they'dbe limiting the quot;custom landingquot; tab option on pages to only those with 10K+ fans. But we also can't deny that social media tools and networks are an important component in our advocacy and communications work. strongAllysonKapin/strong reviews a href="http://www.frogloop.com/care2blog/2010/5/20/fundraising-goes-social.html"3 new tools/a that could help your organization and supporters raise money and/or awareness for your cause over on the strongCare2/stronga href="http://www.frogloop.com/care2blog/2010/5/20/fundraising-goes-social.html" blog/a.  /ppstrongNancy Schwartz/strong got some kudos on the a href="http://progressiveexchange.org"ProgressiveExchange discussion list/a(run by our friends at strongM+R/strong) this past week for the a href="http://gettingattention.org/2010/04/nonprofit-marketing-plan-template-invest-5-10-hours-to-grow-communications-impact.html"Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template/a she made available on a href="http://gettingattention.org/2010/04/nonprofit-marketing-plan-template-invest-5-10-hours-to-grow-communications-impact.html"her blog/a. It's free and can help you get started (or re-started) with a strategic communications plan foryour organization. Thanks for sharing, Nancy!  /ppSpeaking of sharing, don't forget that May is all about quot;Social Media Policiesquot; inour quot;share it forwardquot; initiative via the strongIdeaEncore Network/strong. If you have resources or examples of nonprofit organizational social media policies, share them with your nonprofit colleagues via the a href="https://www.ideaencore.com/"new resources platform/a. Use keywords quot;social media policyquot; and quot;NTENquot; to tag your resources so that we can easily find them!  /ppstrongLauren-Glenn Davitian/strong and the strongCCTV Center for Media amp; Democracy/strong are helping to develop a href="http://commongoodvt.org/"CommonGood Vermont/a, a network of information and resources for the nonprofit sector in Vermont. They're using a combination of free online tools and crowdsourcing to tag and aggregate information. a href="http://commongoodvt.org/"Check out their project -- it's a great example/a!  /ppAnd continuing the knowledge-sharing and crowdsourcing theme: the strongCraigslist Foundation/strong posted a href="http://craigslistfoundation.wordpress.com/"this great summary/a of the recent discussionabout knowledge-sharing for assisting community change. It sounds likethey're working towards the same thing as CommonGoodVT! Check out the a href="http://craigslistfoundation.wordpress.com/"priorities list and hand-made wire-frame examples/a of what their ideal community hub would include and look like. /pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nten/~4/3y18klNcGt0" height="1" width="1"/

span class="inline inline-right"img src="http://www.nten.org/sites/nten/files/images/net-neutrality-300x195.jpg" alt="Photo: The Public Record" title="Photo: The Public Record" class="image image-_original" width="300" height="195" /span class="caption" style="width: 298px;"strongPhoto: The Public Record/strong/span/span p A couple of weeks ago, you may have received an email from me asking you to help us a href="/blog/2010/04/30/save-internet-save-world"Save the Internet/a. Over 1,000 organizations have responded to date, signing on to a href="https://secure.freepress.net/site/Advocacy?cmd=displayamp;page=UserActionamp;id=447"a letter to the FCC/a, asking the Chairman to protect the Internet for the nonprofit sector and the work we do. /p p Thanks to you, the FCC is getting behind just what we asked for: regulating the Internet in the same way that telephone service is, ensuring that providers treat all content equally.   /p p Now the fun starts: the public debate. /p p a href="http://www.americansforprosperity.org/national-site"Americans for Prosperity/a has plunked down a href="http://consumerist.com/2010/05/anti-net-neutrality-ads-hit-airwaves.html"over a million dollars to air ads/a comparing net neutrality to a big government takeover of the Internet. Lobbyists are charting their courses on the Hill, a href="http://www.savetheinternet.com/blog/10/05/19/truth-about-title-ii"asking Congress to sign anti-net neutrality letters/a to send the to FCC.  /p p That means we can't let up. Here's what you can do to ensure that the FCC is able to Save the Internet: /p ol liSign on to the a href="https://secure.freepress.net/site/Advocacy?cmd=displayamp;page=UserActionamp;id=447"Nonprofit letter/a.  If you can't sign for your organization, talk to someone who can.  /li liSign the a href="https://secure.freepress.net/site/Advocacy?cmd=displayamp;page=UserActionamp;id=356"Individual letter/a. If you are not a nonprofit, or can't sign for your organization, you can join the nearly 2 million people who have already signed on./li liTell a Friend. Send your friends and colleagues to a href="http://www.savetheinternet.com/"SavetheInternet.com/a. Share the link in Facebook, Twitter, and everywhere else you share with your friends and colleagues. /li /ol p Here are a few recent resources on the topic: /p ul lia href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/opinion/17mon2.html?ref=opinion"The New York Times/a does a great job summarizing the issue and why it's so important./li liThe a href="http://www.ppcnyc.org/"/aPublic Policy Communicators of New York City have a href="http://www.ppcnyc.org/2010/05/what-we-learned-navigating-the-shifting-media-policy-landscape/comment-page-1/#comment-773"a great write up/a of last week's meeting on this topic./li liThe a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/23/AR2010052303786.html"Washington Post takes a different view altogether/a. /li /uldiv class="image-clear"/divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nten/~4/u_LxV2BongE" height="1" width="1"/